you have bled a billion stars
your bones have galaxies instead of marrow
space and infinity live in your cells
you have the most beautiful anatomy
your thin skin pulses
almost glows
under the night sky
like you're trying to fly up with the dust
where you truly belong
you beautiful shining universe
fly away, baby
don't stay for us
you can bring light
to all
instead of being a steady beacon
holding up a flashlight to illuminate my sketchbook
I tried to draw you once
but I broke all the lead
your hair got stuck on the pages
and your eyes went dead in the gray
you couldn't move
and I didn't like it
(that paper was torn up
immediately)
I was so relieved to see you the next day
flesh and blood and bones and all
you are not a still universe
you are constantly expanding
your mostly invisible energy becoming more illuminated
I could not possibly understand how you came to be
there must be an epic love story
between two beautiful ancient gods
I would like to build a shrine to them
a temple to reach the skies
because you are the most beautiful person I have ever seen
it's a pleasure even saying "hello" to you
because your response is always an optimistic "hey how are you"
you tell me stories of faraway knights
and I listen
(I'd like to write the stories down someday
just in case)
you braid my hair with flowers
my favorites are sweet peas
and somehow you always smell like them
you smell like home
because you truly are my home
your embrace is my room
there is plenty to roam
but you're so beautiful all bottles up
because no one's quite discovered you
I'd like to pop the cork and propose a toast
to us
well, actually, to you
for you
and only you
I hope you find yourself someday, baby
and fly far away

i want to know the story
behind every freckle on your
back and ever scar on your
hands, i want to know how
they stuck with you and i want
to know the story of how
i stuck with you too

i turned away so i wouldn't
have to watch you leave, but
i heard your car start and
i panicked

how do i breathe without you,
how do i breathe without,
how do i breathe?

your sadness is not
beautiful, but your
scars are gorgeous

they are epics across
your skin that tell the
story of how you, just like
all great heroes,
survived

at a young age,
most girls took the time
to plan their future wedding
with cakes and flowers
and music that kissed the crowd
and lights that danced the night away.

but me,
I was too busy
wondering why
anyone would want that
in the first place
because where i come from
the only thing that dances
are the shadows
in the corners
i found myself hiding in,
and the only thing that gets kissed
is my father's ***
whenever he was two beers deep
and feeling pretty entitled.

the only future i ever saw for myself
that involved another man
was getting away
from the ones in my life

because where i come from
the bruises and the *****
are far few in between
and love was only shown
by a dollar sign
nagging at my hand
crying take me
this means love
when it only really meant war.

the only thing i ever felt
remotely good at,
was hiding away
in the dark depths
of solitude.
and i made a promise to myself
a long time ago,
i would never lose myself
to gain love the way i saw it
and i would never feel love
the way it was shown to me
and i would never let someone
not hear what i have to say.

i told myself,
that if i ever fell in love
it would never be someone
like me, or my father
or any of the men in my life.
so i fell in love
and fell in love hard
but then just as i felt myself falling,
i slipped on the ground
i was stuck on to
and i reverted to something much simpler,
solitude.

and all those promises i made to myself
got flushed away,
by lack of affirmation
and my fear of abandonment
because i'm not sure what's worse
not being able to formulate how you feel,
or being too scared to feel at all..

I have been taught only
what i was willing to teach myself
and I was too busy
trapped in  dark corners
and tip toeing around circumstance
to teach myself how to feel properly
and my environment was so dark,
i never gave myself a chance to see the light
I have done many things wrong in my life,
and you are not one.
but why do I feel so lost inside myself
like the hands of time
are grasped around my neck
as i choke on every word i wish to say to you
I have become terrified of truth
and obsessed with affirmation
that soon i will lose
the only thing i hold sacred
and thats you.

.... but I don't want to.

you told me
you knew
we would bring each other down.
you told me the world was cold
and we would drown in frozen lakes together,
when hypothermia turns to terminal burrowing,
we could burrow within each other.
you told me i would **** you.
after that,
i spent 5 hours in the shower boiling off my skin.
you and i
will not sink in tandem, you and i will not
fall apart in unison,
clasping hands.
i am not your personal suicide pill.
i am not your romantic,
selfless partner
in helpless self-destruction,
you're talking like we'll die tomorrow but i have plans to live a while yet,
if you jump from lover's leap
then you will fall alone.
i think you think
i love you.
i think you think i value
your voice
more than the voice of my thoughts.
it is december and the sun is too bright
to look anywhere
but your feet.
it is december and you're waxing poetic
about the boy who broke his neck
falling in the forest at night.
you look me in the eyes like you're trying
to crawl through my cornea.
you make eye contact an act of violence.
[do you
dream about me?]
you ask,
you're trying to be poetic.
i don't tell you about when i dreamed
you snapped your neck
while we walked in the forest,
and i left quickly,
quietly,
lived peaceful and alone.
i don't tell you about when i dreamed you moved on,
or that reoccurring dream where you spread my legs so far,
they snap out of the sockets.
i tell you i don't dream.
i tell you i don't sleep.
i tell you
i wear boxing gloves to church
but jesus never shows, and really,
i shoulda known he'd run from this fight too.
i tell you
i wear boxing gloves to bed but i just end up
chewing on the laces,
boxer's fractures never visited me.
bar room fractures on the nightstand.
[i dream about you,]
you say,
and i take another hit.
you've been in my air for six months.
under my skin for five,
and it's been three months
since you stitched our veins together.
sometimes,
i fall asleep wearing your scarf
and dream of garrotes that smell like you,
dream of strangulation
and bruises on my throat.  
i don't love you like a motive.
you don't love me like a person.
you told me i had a clean heart,
you told me i was an innocent soul,
you told me you would corrupt me, don't
flatter yourself.
your touch doesn't have the power
to make me sick.
only i can do that to myself.
i'm not a virginal sacrificial saint
for you to build altars to.
lets see if we can cut our hearts out with our fingernails.
i bet that they'll look just the same:
****** and red.
the same size as our clenched fists,
guess it's not your fault
you never learned the difference between the two,
you keep trying to fight with aorta and arteries
while my knuckles bruise your gut.
here:
i taped my hands and i'll tape yours too.
this will be a fair fight-
don't break your wrist
when you break my nose.
i'll teach you i'm more solid than a saint.
i'll teach you i am bile and spit and ****.
i'll teach you to love me human
or not at all.

please don't leave me.

i thought this would be
easier, knowing months ahead,
but i'm scared that
b e i n g  a l o n e
will sound even quieter
than it used to
before i knew (and loved) you.

i want saturday mornings to always smell like
black coffee and your cologne

i want to wake up before the sun rises
and walk around in wool socks, sing elvis presley
under my breath because i'll never admit it
but when i fell for you it was relentlessly and without
inhibition and
                          i just
                                     could not
                                                   help myself

i want to carry two mugs back to bed instead of just
one and i want to be there when you wake up
slowly

tonight i wanted to
paint wings across
your shoulder
blades.