As your slick irises grow glassy with salted liquid,
my painted smile is washed away with your emotional tide,
Your bedroom now a hidden cove of turbulent secrets,
My arms turned salted statues from your burdened waters,

I begin to drown.
A bee rippling across my swimming pool.
You were the danger I watched struggle to survive,
All until I could bear it no longer.
So I sacrificed my sanity for the pain of your frantic sting,
All hoping just to dry your wings with my soft breath murmuring comforts.

Did I know your downfall would be mine?

You finish soaking tissues with your tear ducts,
And my mouth crumples inward,
Your bedroom now trembles with sounds of fading footsteps,
My arms left yearning to replace their aches with yours.

A fledgling girl fleeing from the Queen’s sharp verdict,
hunting for a getaway, she exhales in relief
as an old apple tree beckons from the yard
and swathes her in a warm embrace.

The long knotted trunk and crumpled limbs
seem the most exquisite of hiding places.
All the stinging from sharp barbed wire
words swatted away by lovely bounty-laden branches.

Her sores swept away by the summer breeze and tangy
taste of **** fruit. All memory lulled by the gentle murmurs
of the suns rays and the warm matted bark of an old friend.

The princess, now sheltered from snarling dragons
and malevolent witches, rests serenely
in her sanctuary of leaves and daydreams.

I hold so much hatred it feels as though the taught skin layered upon my chest might rupture open,
All to reveal my ribs worn frail and thin from the boiling, thick, acid anger that gnaws at my heart

How does one extract this burning from one's chest cavity and push it out their fingertips?
I crave those red lazer beams that reflect out fingernails and bounce far off into the galaxy,
away from this broken body that contains them.


People tell me it can be done.

Just picture the waves lapping upon crusted sand, taking with each retraction the scurf of yesterday's emotions.
Imagine clean, crisp, Antarctic skylines filled with pure glistening oxygen, untainted by life's noxious fumes.


Yet still if I open my mouth I fear I may ***** up every toxic thought cloud that permeates my skull.

So blinded by thoughtless emotion and the inability to explain away the fearful behavior it produces.


So sometimes I climb back into the corner of my mind.

Sit there till my extremities are numb with the inability to feel any longer.

Sit on the world,
dwelling on every ****** life event,
til the tiny taupe toothpick castles I once so cautiously and carefully constructed,
are burnt to ash by tiny tissue paper dragons.

Cinderblock walls a mile high, covered in thick brambles of insults and insecurities.
Red webbed bruises laced with black.
Guilt-laden eyebrows, bushy with life's burdens.
A carefully trained smirk of nonchalance splits the pale lips of fated cheekbones,
Whites of eyes bloodshot with freshly smoked buds designs.
Laughter of a child heavied with unrest and lonely nights.
Sleep comes only with the knowledge of another morning.
You draw moths, not to the broken surface,
but the flaming soul behind it.
A trap that causes many a hand to ooze with crimson in hopes of soothing your open wounds.
But words will not reach you,
Cries will not move you,
And I cannot fix you.

**** and chips
buried in the bass-line
All shaken heads tossed
listening to the misadventures of a ****-talker
Her lips taught and dry
sporting a second skin of ripped denim
Thick eyelashes caked in spiderwebs
Hustling on doc martens
crunching teeth beneath toes
Ankles taught with leather
A pretty ***** touched
like flowers dipped in chalk
stuck in choke it down memories
Quietly screaming
     look for me