I'm sorry courage took a longer time for your hair to grow out past your shoulders

Maybe I regret the coveted gazes that took residence in the threads of your muscles now precinct, hardly noticed nor remembered

You're the seventh page of my diary, as well as the eighth, the ninth, the tenth and it goes on till the edge of this cliff you call home

There are things I don't know why I do

Like the time I gave myself bruises on my shins just because I liked the colour

Has anyone ever thought of how bruises are actually a metaphor of everything unsaid?

Capillaries bursting under the surface of your skin and not flowing, like the words that ride in submarines in your head but never brave enough to say them out loud

Things sound nicer when they come from your lips anyway.

I laugh too much

Is the passion carved on your skull as deep and carefully thought out as the things you say?

Warmth from you is as untrue and synthetic as your boxing gloves strapped tightly on

Punches with the soul of death, you pretend your stares are empty

I’ve watched sunsets more times than I have seen your smile

The darkness that swallows the harbor isn’t something we’d talk about over steaming cups of coffee

I don’t drink coffee anyway

I heard you make lovely icy rainbow popsicles and hand them out at barbecues

But nothing’s colder than your hard gaze, as hard as your cheekbones

I wish you’d grow your hair mid-back so you can finally braid it

I am not so sure what waiting is supposed to do except breed hope and a whole lot of misery

Silhouettes are me and you and everything intangible, just like me and you and black and white, just like me and you

I am in love with you but I do not love you.

let me dream of your heart beat
let me listen to its unreal pounding against your ribs
let me hear your voice
let me feel your words
as they flutter throughout my mind like butterflies lost in a dark forest
allow me to breathe your name into the blank nothingness of the continuum between hopelessness and faith

save the wrappers
of discarded loves
dreams departed
long gone hopes
collect them all
brush them together with a sweep of your hand
pick them up off of the filthy tiled floor
of your lonely one-bedroom apartment
and take the last train
sit in the last car
in the last seat
alone
in a city filled with people
and step out
and climb up into the maze of streets and lights and sounds
in the middle of the morning night
wake to the chilling air
and breathe
and breathe

does she even start forest fires when she blushes?
"she sets the whole world on fire"
i'm going to be sick.

i know you look at yourself
and see years of desperate shame and avoidance
despair pooling in your eyes
regret slipping out of your mouth
through clenched teeth
which match your fists
you believe you are an unnatural disaster
you are a casualty of a ruthless life
you are a flower
blooming in the middle of winter
in the darkest storm.
you could be falling
and still find time to catch me on your way down
if you were drowning you would give away your last breath to a stranger
simply because you saw them smiling as you sunk down deeper and deeper
remember, to catch yourself first
remember to catch your breath first
remember yourself

sleep
sleep
at least youre not awake
but you dream
of the darkest lights
illuminating all of your fears
lost throughout the years