i touched your soul
and scribbled my name on it
love, you’ll never get lost again

There were nights I spent,
with my hands pressed against a cold window
waiting.
For headlights that said you were home.
For the stomping of your heavy boots,
for the thud of a closing door,
for the swish of your jacket,
And your footsteps down the stairs.

There were nights I spent at that window,
hours and hours that wouldn’t end.

Today I am sitting at a different window
But I still don’t see your headlights.
It’s been seven or eight years by now
-you lose track of those numbers somewhere after three.

I am 17 today.
I was 17 yesterday too.
I will be 17 tomorrow.

I’m trying to use that as my constant
because I cannot use you.

You are the sky in a bright city.
Everyone looks up to you,
but they never find any stars.

I never needed any stars from you,
I never needed to look up and find you,
shielding me from above.
I never needed that.

I just needed your headlights,
just my window and your headlights,
the stomping boots and the door,
the swish and your footsteps.

I just needed… no
I just wanted
your headlights.

rewrite my name

In whatever script suits you.
Twist the letters
Distort the consonance
until the whispered sound that turns my head
begins and ends with you.

Scratch your fingernails over my mind–
make it skip like a broken record

drown me in your words.
let them overcome me
I want all that I hear and breathe to be

The sound and smell of you.

rewire my heart
to beat along with the rhythm of yours.

I want the parts of me,
definitively mine,
To melt and mold with yours.

So that I might know you deeply and entirely.

cut me down to the bone
look at the spoiled, sick
pieces of me.

and ask me
what went wrong.

I’ll show you the invisible scars
the footsteps on my heart
the fingerprints on my wrist
the scalding burns that scathed the neurons in my hippocampus.

Slice me open.
navel to nose
and walk away with bloodied hands.

I’ll keep the scars and scratches
and turn my head to the tune of your name.

the world relentlessly confuses
Tragedy with Art.

We commercialize anxiety
and weigh the profit margin after the cost of therapy.

So that we can play again
and repeat.

So that we can feel whole.
Understood.
Real.
On the backbone of another's suffering.

On the bloodied palms of a fist held too tight.

On the dry cheeks of a face ravaged by tears.

We hold onto this pain.
We publicize it.

Push it like crack in the streets.

people mistake our breaks in reality
For redemption.
Corrosive acid.
that you can hold in your hand.