killer, i have your blood on my hands
and a pool around me.
no intentions of losing you today
but still i let the gray of sadness
devour me
until it convinces me there’s no one else.
and you were something of a stand-up guy
and i’m a woman who sits down quiet
and makes problems out of her tender relationships.
killer, i have nothing to say to you
after everything. i wished i used you instead
then you could hate me
and bruise my heart
instead of me bruising yours.
i have all these dreams where it goes right
and the ringtone reaches your little line
and the laughter flows like honey from the earth.
killer, i am such a danger to your vibrant fuse, your dance moves.
we are glowing stars blind to each other’s light.
i lie down in a pool of your blood,
ashamed that i had to take the knife
and force an ending upon you.
killer, how did i ever expect to be loved if i
i didn’t even welcome such a thing in?

a friend to me is like a bullet,
a little sting entering my body.
a friend to me is a swarm of flies,
an unmanageable mess.
a friend to me is someone broken and ruined on the inside.
i love elusively and leave a forest fire in my trail.
you try to call the firefighters to calm my erratic flames,
but you cannot stop me from sabotaging.
you cannot stop me from being alone.
but i love you with every inch of my soul,
hurting when i see your letters slowly disappear from the mailbox.
the fire is violent and you are not fireproof;
though sometimes i dream you are.
i dream i swallow my worries and hurl them in a suitcase down a cliffside.
i dream i don’t burn down the house we built,
instead i reconstruct it when it starts to shake.
you cannot love me from a distance—
i completely understand,
that you wouldn’t char your fingers;
you wouldn’t have any left to touch me with,
sweetly and so compassionately.  
i cause the deaths of so many beautiful things because i fear they will fall apart anyway.
i feared you would run away,
leave me dusty and frail,
but you loved me until you couldn’t anymore
until my fire singed your skin
and your soul just couldn’t bear one more second of torture.
i understand fully why you had to let me go.

hands are black.
eyes are red from disappointment.
one young naive heart
pursed against a window frame,
breathing misty white circles
on the glassy pane.
waiting for the rusty red car to pull up
in the drive
and she would tug on his satin shirt and plead with her satin eyes.
he would brush his sleeve over soon-expired tears
and hold her clumsy hand
by the rocking chair.
her pupils dilating, flesh smiling.
the years slip by with quick waving hands
forcing me to question my circumstance.
believing still, yet whispers are unsure.  
the blood is young, the doubt fresh,
the driveway empty, the crabapples dead.
he saunters with a limp
and can’t lift me up as far as before.
shoulders weighed heavy from guilt,
cold floors, socks with holes.
his hands are yellow, his chair all creaky.
i read the books, they inform me of wars
and i shut their dark pages with a forcefulness.
i haven’t read the letters from friends; they wouldn’t understand.
they pick blossomed fruits from singing trees
and insert their souls into eternity.
the dirt roads are quiet, the music dull and haunting,
my prized smile is a fraud, the new winter frost a sworn enemy.
by the time the day retires, the aching has only set one foot inside the house,
leaving a bare-bones home
and a shiver hovering around every corner.
i notice no deer, no sparrows, no foxes.
no signs of hope, no signs of rebirth.
i see you beside me with limbs as cold as ice
and the love we had to bury will not suffice.
there are no flowers at our graves,
only frozen branches
lingering
in a place they had not decided themselves
to lay.

on the water
i feel so alone
no friends
no shoulders to lean on
why did i ever think i was special?


my heart aches to be loved
or just noticed.
loneliness is so alone.
the aching of my heart to be held and cherished.
on the water, the ripples beckon me
must be sweet to be with someone just like you
every bubble combined to make a better system.
i want to combine with you
and be who you’ve always wanted me to be.
i’ll never steal the show,
i’ll never be the girl who belongs
i want to dance; i really do,
but my feet will not pick up or stomp or walk or move.
i only wanted to be soft in your hands
so you could mold me in any way you desire.
and i would comply
because who wouldn’t when they realized that they are so difficult to love.
i wanted to be easy.
easy to understand,
easy to speak with,
easy to love:
that is all i’ve ever wanted to be.
not even a “yours”
just someone worthwhile enough.
the water is beautiful this time of evening
i’m wasting it.
i waste my life
and my youth
and the love i get.
i waste it all,
but i’m so terrified.
so terrified of being alone
it keeps me awake at night.
and then i dream of you
and it’s all better because you patch up my wounds
and you leave my bones just as they are.
i dream of you
and that’s so enormously stupid of me.
i’m ashamed for loving you the way that i do,
but it’s just so simple to.
i’m weak and i’ll never be good enough
but please don’t leave me like this:
completely alone
and wasting my own life
being so scared of everything.
i loved you and i never told you.
i’m so alone;
i couldn’t even convince myself to change that
by allowing you in.

i pray i will be able to love those who i am afraid of loving
for fear of seeming too sensitive.
i pray i will be able to pick up the phone for someone who really appreciates my time
because he will not hurt you.
i pray i will be able to confess my emotions
not cowering behind a facade.
i pray i will be able to love you
and i pray that i will not push you away.


—he will not hurt you. you will only hurt him.

i love you,
and that terrifies me.
pull you by the cars
tell you how i feel
let you contemplate.
even though i rejected you many times,
it was all a lie.
because i love you,
i’m just so terrified.
how would you react
if i texted you right now at almost midnight
and said i adore your company
and want to be your girl?
would you ask me if i was drunk or sick or stupid or dumb
or would you say ‘yes’ in an instant, barely even thinking?
would you apologize for losing feelings because i had told you ‘no’ countless times before?
or would you say ‘i love you too,
and that terrifies me’?

who said this would ever be fun?
i am a gaping wound
just passed back in forth between my mind and my heart.
i don’t know how to breathe without an oxygen tank
pumping filtered air into my body.
i’d much rather be dead than have some machine breathe for me.
i am a gaping wound
at every party, i wasn’t invited.
i just stand in the background
and watch everyone else
live till they puke
love till they collapse.
special: why did i ever feel so?
every place hurts
because i smell your scent here
i see traces of your sweat on every chair.
everywhere i look, you had been there before.
dancing with your heart on your sleeve,
you learned how to live at such a young age,
can you teach me how to breathe by myself?
show me the ropes, i can repeat it,
even if you only do it once, i’ll break my ankles and shatter my lungs piecing together any little part i remember.
teach me how to breathe without apologizing,
how to lucid dream,
how to be someone you would never ever forget
even if you get dementia and your brain doesn’t remember how to function anymore.
i am a gaping wound,
but please wipe the blood and bandage me up.
never mind; i don’t wanna damage you too.