Pretend you do not put opals in tiny glass jars
and **** their color,
they form their own town of
cracked stones
looking like lightning. I saw you boil and
bleed the air to create thunder
I heard
my thighs slap together
when you were inside me, the humidity between them
created storms –
nothing is ever fine around you.

I going to run my lips
through you like acid rain
Every drop of me
is going to leave a mark

there is nothing romantic
or tragically beautiful
about wasting away

my sadness is not poetic
my scars are ugly
and so are shining blades

in cracked skin i find no art
no admirable trait
in learning to die

bathroom tiles hold no appeal;
you shouldn't look at me
and find me lovely

broken skin and broken minds
are not unfixable
but shouldn't be desired

being sick is not being fragile
not fire escapes at 3.am
or tears that fall on lovers hands

not bambi eyes and bones
but a complete loss
of all humanity and all identity

demons curl and the void yawns
the one inside your soul
and you have no love, no body, no name

when your mind is sick
every day is a curse
and it is never romantic

*© Tara India.

I dreamt we kissed.

It wasn’t anything cinematic,
only that our heads were bent
in conversation,
and you pressed your lips to mine.

It was cold, the kiss.
And I felt the pressure in my sleep.

The pressure pulling us together,
the sensation of your lips on me,
and the stress when waking
that it was all a dream.

I'm like an old dress at a yard sale.
Everyone likes me
and thinks I'm beautiful, at first.
But then they see a stain
or a tear.
They always notice that one little flaw,
then leave without any warning,
on to the next item.
Making it think they want to buy them.
That someone might actually want them,
to love them and take care of them.