You looked at me, absent-minded. Comparing with eyes made for judgment. It's your right.

It's too bad you don't see the hurt, the words carved into me. The ones that go "she's skinnier" or "she's prettier, you know". I try and consult, whispering "mirror mirror on the wall" but it just won't look at me.

You did it without thinking. Took the liberty to stare me up and down, and when I asked you why you were surprised. You weren't doing it on purpose. I was just a visual obstacle you could look over and judge.

Maybe you lacked malice, but I still saw the wish for better in your eyes. You didn't need to put it into words. I heard it all. Felt the need for better, as I covered up, so you no longer had to be disappointed.

You checked them out and looked at me after as if surprised you'd accepted this version of a body for so long.

Dear Autumn,

Please take away all the pain I held over summers head. Dress up scars with pretty orange and yellow leaves. Leave me bare for winter, so I can be found again. In the city where acceptance is the only thing we have going for us. In my flashy, save neighborhood where I feel most myself. I walk over spines and skin fallen from trees and pretend I don't know, don't hear them begging to be heard. Begging to be found, before the season seals this grave.

Don't forget the scratches that healed into nothing
He might not have scarred but he certainly clawed
Aimlessly and wild
At your heart
His intent set on never loving you right
That counts for something
So don't let him back in when he lies crying at your feet
Begging to be understood and pleading sorrow he doesn't feel
Bruises may lose color but never their ghost
So remember that because each hit after
Will hurt a tiny bit more than the one before

Your technicolor emotions turn into watered-down versions when the alcohol seeps into your veins. Creating watercolor paint, and with that, you craft me images of a world unframed. Sculpting beauty from hope and wonders you found on the floor.
Perspective lost to the consumption of liquid courage. Making way for actions unrestrained. A little too much. A little too lost. A little too loosely letting your tongue take charge. Amplified by longing. Tainted by the ever-growing ghost of tomorrow.
You will not remember when morning comes. The art you drew in lazy circles around my weary body. The daunting fables you wrote me into. Left to be nothing more than simple fever dreams to reminisce over.

You leave pavements ******
And graves dug but without bodies
Learning tricks of manipulation
You know how to wrap us around
The small of your finger
With bloodshot eyes and a mouth
Full of sweetened poison
You kiss girls and leave them hungry
Foolishly hoping that your touch
Just might heal them
You leave pavements cracked
So we are all left skipping  
Hoping to save your back
Isn't love unkindly blind?

How could you forget
The way my lips kissed you truths
You felt as heavy as your own
Because they were
We were likes and strangers
How could you forget
The way my arms kept you safe
On nights where the world
Knew how to hurt you most
And I held you as you refused to talk
Because I understood, I had been there before
How could you forget
The laughter in my eyes
As we serenated each other songs
Written decades before we were born
Because I still hear your voice
Deep and unbothered
Full of passion as you looked at me
And me feeling infinite
How could you forget
What it feels like to wake up
Tangled in me, limbs intertwined
Because I wake up empty
Wishing to go back
Longing for those days

How could you forget

Dim down the lights
This way you won't have to see me cry
Turn my body around
My eyes will tell you stories you can't bear to hear
And do ignore me in the morning
I am so dreadfully loud
But am I okay?
Are you alright?
Never again did those words fall
Dripping with honey
Sticky with longing
Down from your lips
To kiss my porcelain skin
Never again did you care
I remember so vividly
The turning of the tides
It came flooding, that Autumn rainfall
And all that was left for us to do
All we did
All we managed

Was drown.

I hope someday soon
My heart will stop
Asking about you
For my eyes to see you
In the faces of strangers
And my limbs to untangle
From the ghost of yours
That left a long, long time ago
I hope my heart will one day
Be able to forgive me
For giving it away to someone
So reckless and beautiful
And that my body stops aching
For the scars you left
Are constant reminders
Of all that was lost
Once upon a first love

Untangle my body from yours
                        Step number one
Untangle my gaze to stop from speaking volumes
                        Step number two
Untangle my dreams from reality with you
                        Step number three
Untangle my definition of happiness from your presence
                        Step number four
Untangle the future from possibilities containing us
                        Step number five
Untangle my person from yours
                        Impossible

Sometimes I feel like a sunflower lost in a sea of roses. Drowning out my sunshine with endless streams of red. Killing my words with the poison of your laugh. Bleeding out my confidence, replaced by curious venom.

Sometimes I feel like a tree lost in the comfort of the forest. Handing out leaves to cover up bruises. Letting me die over and over again to bring me back around every fourth season. Roots deep in the ground, no way to escape now.

Sometimes I feel like a monster in a halo of angels. I am the reflection of your nightmares hiding in broad daylight. I am the devil’s daughter pretending not to care. Claws sunken into my back whispering words of despair.

Sometimes I feel like a book lost to a world of imagery. Words to give lost to the ones that don’t care about it. I am a song in a foreign language begging to be understood. I fight my mind with movements captured on a screen.

Sometimes I feel like I am screaming in silence. Begging, pleading, dying. All with a smile on my face for we only care about what others don’t know about us. What the world sees.

Sometimes.

There will never be anyone like you
Broken by the world, mended by pretend
Nobody like you, a mirror passed and disgraced
Someone who can hold me while I cry
The same way you did, without asking why
Understanding the battles I fight
To keep from breathing smoke
To keep from drinking fire
Please come back
I know we could
Everyone makes mistakes
Let this be yours

romanticize our problems
until they are colored in pink and purple hues
baby blue mornings filled with you
fantasize our perfect life together
what if reality is the fake
coffee, music, and solitude can be found
any Saturday safely in your arms
awoken by kisses soft and gentle
until clothes end up getting lost somewhere
dancing around the living room
in our pajamas, without masks on
I wish this was still true
but this is not reality, this is not truth
this is me romanticizing past loving
like dreaming of Paris in the rain

I love company
In the form of anxious thoughts
I am less lonely
Accompanied by twenty screaming voices
Tearing at my every inch of flesh
Pouring pain into my veins
Crying is good for the soul
They laugh in union
As I lie lonely in my bed
Hoping someone will find me
Bruised and broken
And take me into their arms
Hold me like a child
But you are too grown to feel such things
These voices whisper, licking blood
Carefully off their fingers
Spikes poke at my sides leaving no room
For me to move or breathe
I am slowly dying
And yet I tell you I am fine
For if I were to ever admit
That this is how I truly feel
My demons would take form
No longer shadows but figures
Ready to take me whole

There is art
In your heart
Painting pictures
When I lay
My head down on your chest

There are songs in your eyes
Singing lullabies
When you hover
Pin me down
With your stare

There is a poem
On the tip
Of your tongue
I taste it
When I kiss you

You are tortured
Stereotyped
My jaded lover
I hear it
When you won't talk

We speak with fire on our tongue
Hoping to find a match in angry looks
Aiming to light up and respark
Hit where we know words hurt most
Lashing out and cashing in
I apologize for feelings for speaking truths
You are proud but  reach out
As a means of saying sorry
Ironic as we know we both
Will do it all again
Strike a match past the parchment
Of our skin, drawing fires
Drawing circles until we burn
Out, out, again and again
Smoldering embers of what could have been
Leaving marks shaped like feelings
Neither of us can make worth of

And so they kept on drawing fires
Past the parchment
Of their skins

His confessions were slow and seldom
Whereas yours fall rapid and steady
From your lips, dipping down
To kiss my body
His loneliness was everlasting
Whereas yours settles for nothing
Looks me square in the eyes
Daring me not to smile
His words left me bruised and blackened
Whereas yours find soft healing
When you tell me you'll do small things too
To make me happy

Your honesty doesn't taste the same
as his did in the light of rain
Hovering above me, caged in
Staring with hunger, painted by pain
His eyes cried tears of silence
yours scream words to me in vain
Pointless conversations are all
I can bear to swallow
Nowadays.