Celestial vivacity; a common misconception.
We write odes and sonnets to glorify the speckled sky.
It's not the romanticized effervescent glow that consumes me, it's the preceding invisible chaos.

When I say you remind me of the stars, I'm not referring to a sublte glow, one the same as the next, soft and graceful. That's not you.

You are infinite, scorching luminosity, passionate hearth with a vindication of incandescent eternity.

You see, you saw the stars for the story they told and appreciate each particle of gas and dust that gave us the option for passive freedom to glance at these historical records of meticulous detail and chance, in our ever changing interstellar medium.

My ode is this-- do not glance passively at the night sky. Instead reach for each piece of the collapsing core of our stars, clasp it into your palms and appreciate holding both creation and destruction in all absoluteness.

Most days I am too gentle for the violence of living.
Rust red droplets felt so vicotorious at the time-- Envisioning valor.
Mount Olympus eruption at my herosim.
Serenity in adrenaline.

Until the fibers of my tissue struggle back together in holy matrimony, begging for salvation from a drugstore razor blade.

There is no honor in waging wars against your own flesh,
and I am no Athena.

I want to be known by you

I want every inch of my broken and shattered soul to be expertly explored and analyzed by you

I want you to disappear with the knowledge that nobody else possesses

because then at least I know it wasn't for lack of effort

don't let me be gone

it hasn't even happened yet and I feel the weight of your absence pressing on my chest

I've never been one for attachment and now I understand why

because to care too deeply is the emotional equivalent of Russian roulette

but this time they are all filled with bullets

and I seem to be winning this round

when I was three years old, I sat at my grandmothers front door on Christmas Day and waited

and waited and waited and waited
and waited and waited
and waited

for the beat up blue mustang of yours to rattle it's way up the driveway.

but it never showed.

which soon became a habit of yours.

you didn't show me how to walk or talk or tie my shoes or tame my messy hair

and you didn't show me how to put on eyeliner in such a way that I wouldn't resemble a raccoon and you didn't show me that plaid on plaid doesn't mix and you didn't show me that bows should never be in your hair past the fifth grade

but all of that is not why I hate you

I hate you because you didn't show me that boys don't have the right to my body
and you didn't show me that my opinion matters
and you didn't show me that sometimes and iced coffee really is the key to fixing your day and you didn't show me that no matter how many times he told me I look like **** in a ponytail, I certainly do not.

you didn't show me how to forgive and you most certainly didn't show me how a healthy relationship works. you didn't show me how to love others and you certainly never showed me how to love myself

because every time I force myself to take a look in that reflective coating, I see your hair and your jaw line and your god forsaken freckles and I find pieces of you in my six mile legs and I hear you in my full lips

and I absolutely hate it

because you of all people do not deserve to be prominent in my life, yet you've found a way to force yourself into existence, you're nothing more than a leech and that's all you've ever been.

you leech onto highs and broken men who break me beyond measure, you leech into any substance you can find, on ****** reassurance, on the hope that maybe one day you'll be better, but maybe that day should be post-poked, because it's a crime in itself to waste a good time.

but when it comes down to it I guess you did teach me something.

you showed me that some people simply won't change, and some people don't deserve forgiveness. some people are ****** into this vast vortex of immeasurable selfishness, and that addictions can be self-inflicted.

so thank you.

I pray that one day i muster up the strength to  show you what you've done to me, mommy dearest.

we are predestined to believe that circumstances arrive that cannot possibly be remedied but after all I'm just a broken girl and I've lived through hell, but words are just words, and people are just people, and it's about time I stop believing they are anything more than that

and the most terrifying part of this
is that you are coursing through my veins and overtaking my thoughts in rapid succession and at any given moment you could just









leave

you, my love, resemble rain

sporadic and full of deadly potential

a downpour of passion or a sprinkle of melancholy tendencies

yet somehow calming and innocent

humbling in the purest form

and terror at its darkest

we lie together in a hammock of broken promises and empty compliments
and I wish I could say that your hollow heart beat in the same rhythm it used to
the most it does is break me down in the worst way
but all I want to do is watch you hurt as much as I did
and then stitch you back together
out of habit


do you still dream like you used to?

you single-handedly crushed my big world into a tiny ball and opened it up and called it art.
and I believed you.
because you could tell me that the sky is actually green and clouds are made of tiny people and that trees whisper amongst one another and I'd believe every word.
and that's all well and good and all but that means I have to believe you when you say you love her


and **** does that sting

as much as I've grown used to hating myself

I sure wish I didn't

and I sure wish you didn't know that I'm a sucker for anything acoustic

and that alcohol makes me giggly

and that I sleep on my side and whimper when I have bad dreams

and that my burning desire is to get the hell out of this town

and I sure wish I didn't ever love you

i'm a walking denial with a fickle heart and mangled bones and you're a broken boy with a passion for getting hurt and a longing to be loved
and I don't want to sit here and promise the world when I can only deliver a ******* speck but I swear on everything I've ever loved, on everything I've ever believed in that I will make you feel whole again no matter what it takes.

you told me that I resembled the battered, cracked baseboard
that ran along your concrete room
clearly suffering years of irrational abuse, and torment,
a foundational error maybe,
and chipped paint.

i can't say that I disagree.

but i can tell you that me and this baseboard share a lot in common

you see we both started out with a simple purpose,
sit still and do our job.
granted, my foundational friend had it slightly easier,
but only due to the that fact that you only kicked the baseboard accidentally;
in a drunken stumble or a game of indoor soccer.
I, on the other hand, was bruised and chipped away on purpose.

whether i said the wrong thing, or laughed too long, or wore the dress that you didn't like--

as if it mattered

you rattled my mangled bones with your lion heart and wanton ways,
my lips, red raw and quivering

you shook away any doubt of my worth
and smiled at the inflicted galaxies on my skin
you always saw yourself as a god

you watched the rustic liquid trickle down my thighs
from your own incisions
on my already scarred hips
and I almost felt beautiful

you ripped apart my innocence
and drowned out my screams with bad music with nasally singer and repetitive melodies

I thought I at least deserved better than ****** music

despite your absence I still sit
in concrete rooms
with cracked baseboards
and caving ceilings
because that's where I feel at home

among the broken and the abandoned,

among the walls that soaked up as many terror stories as me

among irreparable damage

and oddly enough i want to thank you
because now i have a home
within the vacancy