They say when you think about someone you “like,” you get butterflies in your stomach.
When I first heard that, I laughed.
I don’t feel butterflies with you.
I feel a wildfire.          
Every word you spit is kindling to the scalding embers in my throat,        
welding my words into bars too heavy for my tongue to lift.                    
I scream fire yet you wouldn’t **** to put me out.
Sweet suffering;
The sickness in my stomach
Like eating too much ice cream at once        
And your heat is inescapable.
Why?
I don’t know
Why?
I don’t know.        
Why?
I don’t know!
Why?
I can’t!
Because the truth is: you could burn away every string of flesh in my body and I would still find 206 reasons to stay carved into the marrow of my bones.
You are not the exhilaration of the fall,
You are the sweat in my palms before I jump.
You are not the volume in my voice,
You are the way I bite my lip before I speak.
You are the finish line on a hot mid-day
And I am the last runner to finish.
If you are a wildfire,              
Then time is a pile of dead Autumn leaves
And we didn’t know any better.
One day I hope you look back and see all that you’ve burned.
There will be people who are rivers and streams and men in yellow
Who will drown you with words and water                
Because they’ve never seen red
And you will always be the only force in existence they cannot touch.
I think you will always be a wildfire
Even when I become a storm-cloud
And you are a timid flame.

In class the teacher asked
To write a list of our bad habits
Your name showed up in my list
Twice

By that time
I knew I would fall in love
With anything that would remind me
Of how it felt to be alive

I was taught that roses can grow anywhere
And that I had to be careful
Whose heart I choose to grow them
My bad

They told me I deserved better
But the ones I deserved
Were chasing girls
They didn’t

I learned the hard way
That life is much like a party
You arrive at your fullest
And get out like ****

Falling in love reminds me of being drunk
Not matter how bad the hangover is
You would still drink again
Because the feeling it gives you
Is indescribable



I know I’m getting older
Because my childhood dream
Of being invisible
Has turned into a nightmare

The edges of my soul
Are sharper now
I’ve got some demons inside
Don’t get too close darling

Fire raises like a work of art
In front of me
And it keeps me from seeing
It’s burning my life to ashes

You could have stopped all of this
But you ran away
Like a poem
With feet
Arms
And a heartbeat

This poem is for the man in love with the bottle,
because it's the only thing he can hold onto.
The bottle demonstrates its love by helping him forget.
Because the bottle is filled with magic
he thinks will make him loveable.

This is for the man that can't fall asleep
because the bottle is empty.