His rosary repeats every chance
the means collect in pocket of his
well-torn jeans held up by a busted
leather belt, destroyed by bicep
binding and makeshift holes.
His meditation is medicated,
his god is chemically composed.
The stigmatas rise in elbows
covered by long sleeves in
July’s heat. He says he can see
heaven, not in glints of white light,
but in clandestine calm. In his
induced repose he repents
to the soft hum of Tuesday’s
sun, and once again,
he wakes.


A.M. Davis

“When I was younger, I thought all I wanted was to be alone. Cramped in that two-bedroom house with my parents and siblings, with no space to think or to even take a **** without someone knocking on the door. I wanted to go to college just because I thought I needed space–space to breathe and to become my own person.”

“And now?” Mallory asked. Each word that left her mouth wrote itself across the pitch black of December and I stared at each letter until I could not only make sense of the question, but to realize the answer.

“And now I realize that my own person is someone that I don’t like very much.”

The words were as unkind slipping off my tongue as they were sitting in the back of my mind. Now they’ve materialized, holding an undeniable presence and their heavy aftertaste made my stomach turn.

I don’t know if I was looking for sympathy. If I was waiting for her to reassure that I was in fact not a terrible human being. That her company is not a polite obligation. But she sat there saying nothing, and that was louder than anything she could have said out loud. I looked to my right, at the woman I wordlessly fell in love with. Her blank stare into the dimly lit street below pushing me farther and farther away and suddenly I felt the need to say anything to anchor me to her before she drifted too far away.

“I left. And I get that it was my choice, but there was no way I could be satisfied staying in this town for the rest of my life like everyone else. Moving to a city where I knew absolutely no one; it was a change. I went from speaking to the same people everyday for four years to not saying a single word for multiple days in a row. I couldn’t be gentle anymore; I couldn’t be vulnerable. And if that makes me a bad person, then I guess I am. But I did it to survive. You can’t criticize me for my methods to survive knowing you.”

he’ll take his whiskey off a drip
yet still winces with each sip.
says he’s got things instilled that ought be killed,
but this pain he can never rid.
he says he dreams of god
maybe that’s why he spends so long
with a drink at hand between one night stands,
catching each hour as they run.

he sleeps less each night,
spoon and needle at his side
as they rock him to sleep with a mother’s ease
kiss his head then turn the light.

he’s got no plans and too much time
counting each minute until he dies.
says his years’ been filled with tears and pills
it would be nice to just unwind.
his friends are concerned
but don’t say a word
they can spot a lost cause and what are the odds
that he’ll be successful this time?

I’m not sure where this path will go
but I will cling to this chosen road.
there’s no turning back now
the bed is made and the secret’s out.

I feel detached every now and then
that my life is some work of fiction.
the written ink is bleeding through
pages torn, my spine in two.

I can’t breath now,
walls are closing on me now.
whiplash of the ups and downs
take a toll on my mind.

if I draw first
it’ll be on my own terms.
kiss cheeks with the traitors
that were friends of mine.

watch as their words break
shattered mask they made
revealing the teeth of snakes,
hidden the whole time.

the next steps are predictable
cut hair and written notes.
medication to concentrate, but
with broken means there’s none to make.

I can’t breath now,
my chest caved on me now.
they tell me to calm down
but I’ve lost my place.
can you find me a center?
stone to place my feet first
before I slip even further
to the ‘no escape’.

will this fade with age?
cover the walls with paint
that were stained in blood?
from the second that I was born
my lungs cried with remorse
of the sentence begun.
but now no one’s by my side.

will you know when the deed is done?
my name a whisper off strangers’ tongues.
there’s no turning back now
the bed is made and the secret’s out.

When we first met, it was almost like a movie. And you were kind, and warm, and loving and all the unidentifiable qualities that I’ve always known that I was missing but that I couldn’t quite name. You brought me so close to the sun that I nearly lost my footing. Oh, but the view! An adventure—you were the unknown yet the assurance that you were, in fact, what I’ve been waiting for. You became a virus—in the most romanticized way. My dear, I did not wish to be rid of you. You were all I could see, a scarlet fever casting rosy shade. And the doctors all told me that I would lose myself to you, but I only almost heard their warnings. You see, when you are that close to the sun, it is hard to tell between a sunburn and seared skin. From that height, everything is small, detached, and insignificant and it became my only sense of reality. But even you, yourself, became a challenge. Blistering scars behind elbows not quite completely covered by long sleeves in July heat and the collecting makeshift holes marking your belt. I almost asked, but you see, then it would be our problem. And I wasn’t quite ready for that. I knew we were on the edge of something great, and I didn’t want Her to cut us short. You disappeared with Her for weeks—sometimes I wished that you were in the arms of another instead. Cause when She whistled through the needle, into your veins, She always took more and more of you away. She carved you hollow and you stood as a ruin of the temple I once worshipped. I almost didn’t recognize you and from this height, I couldn’t see how you slowly began disappearing. I still think about you often, and what name you would have, carved into stone above the relationship gone bad. You are my Almost. Because we were on the edge of something beautiful, but we fell short. Almost—the name sat on my tongue as your mother asked me if I had known, and the words almost made it out of my throat but even I was not ready to admit that you slipped through my fingers. Almost—as in I almost made it to your apartment in time. And maybe I could have stopped Her from taking the last bit of you. Maybe I would have caught you before you hit the ground.

Sometimes, I know you only
as your absence, hanging in the air.
I befriended her, she knows my name.
I learned to love her, or to love
the gift she gives: a pain to call my own.
A knife in my back is inherently mine, after all.
On the days where the sunlight
seems to vanish she is there, waiting
to embrace me. She’s more beautiful than you,
her skin shines like gold, her youth preserved
like a stained-glass saint. She is the only
thing that withstands time, a monument.

You are more than aching arms outstretched to
the empty air, than the frustration of beating the
same dead horse. You are the sound of
shattering glass when you walked into
the bar with someone new after you canceled
our plans once again because you were ‘busy’.
You are the noose around my neck, looking down,
smiling at the sight of me strangling to escape you.
You are words written on fogged glass,
vanishing before being read. You are
the cold beds of strangers and my tear-
drenched plea for you to stay, just this once.

Suddenly I am a wildfire.

My warning rolled off my lips,
as you threw matches at my feet,
retreating from the angry burn.
A smile on your face, you knew
the game I was unwilling to play.

I was your martyr, and you,
the sword through my throat.
Baptizing me in my own blood,
painting me every hue, yet still
I was not the right shade for you.

This is more than flint and friction,
this is arson by your hand. It was
your breath that gave life to the
immaculate inferno that I am.

Suddenly I am a wildfire

and I am out of your control.
I am more than your narcissism,
a maelstrom of malice to the blistered
fingertips that had scared
this sacred skin.

Hear the sirens sing my name
while no one whispers yours.
The damage is done and out
of your hands, nothing more
that you can say.

I am the fire that will never
truly die, see my essence in
the embers and how even when the
heat subsides, cleansed charred
grounds give new life and you
will realize that while you were
merely the fuel, I was the force.

It has been 10 years since I’ve first seen your face
and, around your ankles, the weight of  generations
of blood that bit their tongues behind silent lips.
It has been 10 years since I accepted that I was
never going to be just as ‘happy’ as other girls,
I was an observer behind the windows when all
I really wanted was to go out and play.
I hated you—no, I loathed you--but that could not
be true because you didn’t let me come close
to feeling so human. You stole birthday parties from me,
you stole my mornings as I laid in bed, unable to
move, crushed down by the burden of you.

It has been 8 years since I detached myself from
this body, when I decided nothing could destroy me
quite like you. I threw myself from tall buildings,
hoping that someone would care enough to catch me.
The ground hurt worse and worse each time.
You taught me that being suicidal does not have to be
an active effort. That its undertones lie in the
carelessness of crossing the street without looking,
That it is in the silence of distancing myself from
every friend I had because ‘it just makes it easier’ if I was alone.

It has been 4 years since I allowed myself to admit
that I simply could not carry your body alone.
I refused to be ashamed of you because you
were never my choice. I can still remember the
way my mother’s eyes rimmed with tears as she
realized just how long you have been residing in this
household.  Since that day, you began fade. You disappeared
the way the monsters under the bed retreat from
the flashlight. Your presence was much more overbearing
breathing down my neck than when I looked you in the face.
But even now, sometimes I find your fingerprints pressed
against my window, and your glazed eyes gazing back
at me in the mirror.

Indulged me in its golden glow,
traced its light across my face,
trailing freckles in its wake.
It hung in the sky for the
world to see, prideful in its praise,
entranced in its illumination,
I strayed, held at a safe distance.
Long hours embraced in your heat,
your company inevitably consuming me.

Hypnotized, I came too close.
The warmth that wrapped
around my skin pulled me in
and now I burn to the touch.
Fever catching like flames,
suddenly I am a wildfire.

The days collect and seasons run.
Your light diminishes to dusk.
Winter creeps into my bones,
gray-scale shaded the home
I once found comfort in. Your love
lingers for shorter hours now,
chasing its shadow on the ground,
I grasp with fingertips as we drift
further and further away.
It leaves me longing for summer days.

let the edges blur,
easier to see
muted silhouettes
with your amber hair.

your words, once easy
to swallow when you
stained my lips crimson,
leave a bitter taste.

like the aching in
my outstretched arms,
clung to expectation,
fallen in defeat.

you, in your grays and blues,
with eager expectations clawing
my skin from its bone.
you tore me apart just to see
the colors that I would spill.
paint them in every hue
and they still wouldn’t be
the right shade for you.

do you expect me to smile back
after you’ve pulled every molar
from its bed? to lend you my
splintered spine for your knife?

the miles soaked in blood
are now stained for you.
but you would still claim
there is more to give.

I hope it hurts
that it’s my hand
that claws your throat
whenever you kiss her.

drag yourself
across the shards
the fragments that reflect
the hollowness we are.

let it hang
a fractured breath in the air
that is not quite there
something vague.

I am known for crying wolf
and for holding empty space.
but the cry was very much real;
the wolves have learned my face.

to have lost, to watch
you leave my room one last time.
the sunlight followed.

the red wine slurs
that stain my teeth
boil behind bones.
your crimson hurt
and clumsy feet
shake this glass home.

the cracks creep up
and take their hold,
crush the veins that
had gave them gold.

you are not mining for coal, you
take what you want and now you'll go.
my blood underneath your nails,
secrets that were not mine to tell.

you are my monday nights

drunk alone.

you are the choked expectations

carved hollow.

I will bite your lips

next time you lie.

your blood in my mouth

will suffice.

my eyes are heavy

can you kiss them awake?

can you rid me of

the sound you make,

the sigh of relief

when I kiss your skin,

the cracks of light

that let me in.

I’m afraid Sunday’s expectation
is harder to swallow than I thought.
that the grey, evening air does not sit
in my lungs so easily.

the promise of your presence hangs
on the delicate thread of your word
that has been known to give way many
times before.

stop running me through the sevens
to meet the same conclusion again,
do not try to lift these spirits
just to let them fall through your hands.

just let me move on from your broken word,
verify my claims and rid from this hurt.

I could arrange the broken bones
but the cracks would still
map out like constellations.
my ruptured ribs are bruised
and floating with no home.

you traced my scars with fingertips
and kissed my forehead ‘till I fell asleep.
you know I am broken, my dear.
so please, handle with care.

car alarm lullabies
harmonize with the howls
of the dogs next door.
I could paint every inch
of these beige walls, but
they still wouldn’t feel like home.

before I knew it,
the words came spilling out
and fell onto the
dining room floor.
they took each tooth
inside my mouth
as they poured,
bare cavity collapsing.
stare at the mirror;
there’s nothing left.
there’s nothing here
to see.

retract the roots restricting my lungs.
you despise how I can still breathe
without you standing next to me,
holding the bones you have undone.

there is power in destruction
and intentions in your lies,
disdain glowing in your eyes,
of illusion’s interruption.

why won’t you just pull the knife?
why would you just end this life?
you could watch as I bleed out,
as I give all I have to give
one last time.

his cigarette danced the way
my lips wanted to trace the skin
it graced. life is much easier
when the only thing you let in
holds you softly in blurred edges.
let me lift the pain from your chest,
let me be your crutch when the rest
of the whole world won’t stop spinning.

I can blur the edges, you'll see
if you would just let me in.

raise me from this grave.
I hope the ground stains your hands
from the life you stole.

I confess to be terrified
of the tears across the lines
of collecting wasted time,
left in a room full of ghosts.

the spine of this book has broke
and the edges you tucked away
now broken off, leaving frayed
illusions, that this was how it
was. how it's always been.

I heard your whisper and
it broke, giving way to air.
your shadow’s edges
slowly rot into
the pages’ rips and tears.

expectations ring around
the fragile glass of champagne
party favors tracing the
tracks of the damage done.

you weren’t there to hold my hair,
I said ‘good night’ to the floor
of a stranger’s living room
soaked with my blood stains and ***.

these Friday nights without you
leave me emptier each time,
longing for what was once mine
but now dissolved in the sun.

may the taste of blood remind you
of the damage that you have caused.
of the trail of gleaming galaxies
peaking from under my skin.

casting me away does not hide
the havoc you have wreaked inside,
the house you tore down from the bone,
that we had built with our own hands.


you tear me down by my methods
but I am only trying to
salvage a life after knowing you.

may the taste of blood remind you
that you were the first one that drew.

if it would put you at ease,
I will strip myself down,
baptize myself in your sea,
by your hands I will drown.

if it would quiet your mind,
I’ll sew my own mouth closed.
actions grow louder with time,
hollow intentions disposed.

you are the air in my lungs,
the god to which I pray
the religion on my tongue
I return to each day.

save me from a life without you,
give me a love that will consume.

I saw her sunlit silhouette
laced in the whites of the morning.
her cigarette stained mouth escaped
with the memory of her kiss,
of the taste burned on my lips.
I have to remind myself that
she is real,  as absolute as
the air that crushes my chest,
as the words she left on my breath.

I plucked the blood soaked
molars from their bed,
witness the decay
growing in my head.
cavities collapse
on themselves, and yet,
I am here, standing.

scabs scratched under my
fingernails, scars made anew
stung by the sunlight,
I am on display for you.

take these shallow bones
and the hollow words,
carve my jaded eyes
and relieve this hurt
you caused when you touched.
you caused when you let
me love you this much.

grab my cheek for contrast
to contort and contrive
at your will, to fit the
porcelain mask you made
for me. to mold into
what you want me to be.
you could stain me red and
I still would not be the
right shade. I can’t compare
to these conditions you
made. I will never be
the right version of me
that was assigned by you.

Hold me to the light
and even just right
I will still fall short

I crushed the love that was holding me up
it fell through my fingers effortlessly.
I broke your spine, my dear,
and I’m afraid I cannot piece it together.

the bones of it hung in the wind
suspended in kaleidoscope expectations.
I wanted to see things that were simply
not there, grasping at the air.

desires disfiguring the innocent implications,
the shattered glass words cut my mouth.
and there they laid on the table before you,
mangled, mutilated yet beautifully clear.

I almost heard you reason to
prolong this painful charade,
and I almost could not stop
myself asking you to stay.

my mind is troubled by the emptiness,
having only the mess you left behind.
perfect the art of saving what is left,
trying push past the finish line.
I can never seem to burn away the inside
to clean all that you have touched,
erase the stains of your hands, believe me, I’ve tried.
the floods washed away this home,
left me alone with the words
hanging from the ceiling you broke.
I swear I was going to ask you to stay.
it was on my breath when you broke my chest.
wrap up these bones,
they’re no use to you.
splintered, shattered,
like a present.  

how can hate still spit from your lips?

homes built on gray space
balancing on lover’s grace
I retract and confine,
soothed by the mercy of time.
they have their marching orders
and their detached constraints.
the shattered stained glass ceilings
portray them all as saints.

I painted you in gold,
your crown was set in stone.
cracks collected in silence,
crumbling once alone.

daylight speaks through somber teeth,
detrimental deeds hang on its back.
carve the words stuck on your cheek,
let winter crush all that we once had.
wasted, losing time.
I lost what was mine.
I’m sorry I let it smother our light.
I’m sorry I didn’t put up a fight.
my limbs hang bare, like trees;
I’ve given you all of me.
like the cold, you are life’s demise.
maybe I should have stayed inside.

cold shoulders crack under pressure;
just shield your eyes and look away.
it’s easier to deny you are lost
when you never see the light of day.
learn to love the tears in your seams,
the pages that withered in time.
healing has a beauty of its own.
be gentle with the time it takes to grow,
to embrace the spaces in between,
the process of learning how to be free.

we were the essence of the
early morning dust, floating
in expectation, of the
restriction in hopes we held.
I long for your touch, your gaze
gliding over my skin, your
illuminating shadow
imprinted as galaxies
growing over my body.
love me under covers,
hold me as your universe.
your meaning, your light to guide.
when mornings drag you away.

you like to count each candle
but hate when the wax drips down
burning you so naively
in its gentle, innocent
way. you blamed the blisters rising
on my hands, you stained them red.
these broken bones left to mend,
this weight that was never mine
is now left for me to bear.
you ask about the cracks and tears
when you didn’t handle with care.

will these scars ever heal?
the pounding, deafening
silence rise me from this
grave, this hole I dug alone
to try and stop the lights
from blurring every time
I get too close? Please burn
me so I’ll feel something.
I’m so tired of this
nothing, this gaping void
that demands to be felt.
but I only feel the
darkness sitting at night,
where you once slept.  where you
told me that you would be.
but there is only the
empty air, your absence
forever hanging there.

why did you tear away from me?
why did you have to go away?
I still feel your skin on my sheets.
your smell hangs like morning sunlight
through the windows watching you go.
give me these Saturday mornings
and I will give you Friday nights
leave me kisses that stain my skin
and rose shades to color the light.

I like the zeros blinking in your eyes
and the saliva build up within time.
you hold my waist before we go home,
things only allowed once we are grown.
back in the backseat you’re staring at me,
blowing smoke out the window as we go
down. I feel your lungs breathe long and slowly
filling spaces before the emptiness we found.

take me fast in rolling gusts
and pull me underneath.
I ate your words as you fed
them to me. but they all
caught between my teeth.

I could feel your bones as they ache
and fell in love with the sound
that they make, stretched over mine.

their moans and their whispers told
all I’ve ever wanted to know
without a word escaping your mouth.

could you love me, bare and true
without the reflection of you
etched across my forehead?

could you take these broken bones and
fix the mess that was never your own?
Because I would love to be yours.

whispers wrapped with good intentions
are delivered so easily. the silver specs
of the paper to distract what’s underneath.

I will take your words cause they’re all
you will ever give. but I have to move on
from your grasp to learn how to live.

we’re on the corner of main street
drunk on whiskey and wine.
I feel your mind wandering off,
leaving me behind.

I could never just move on
I’ve always got to tear myself down
I can’t read the red lights,
can’t refuse a losing fight
and it leaves me on the ground.

the truth is that I miss you.
that I thought we were best friends.
I still wish the best for you,
and I hope to see you again.

that boy carried my bones into the night
his face lit by street lights, words growing like forests
but these trees cannot grow while in the dark
so undo his shirt and take off the mask
only space filled by the breaths that depart.

he knew what he was doing, confusing my mind
cut the corners so I’m subdued to silence.
wide-eyed, just how you like me.

well, these brittle bones can’t seem
to twist and contort to your dreams,
your whims have their own motive
as your gentle touch seals me in secrecy.

we both know that I’m not your lover,
just caught in a fever I can’t defeat.
your company under the covers,
left with the memory of your touch
and smell of your sheets.

the red that you spilt all over me
left to wash, rinse, and ultimately repeat.
you played Brand New on the ride home
as the streets collected row by row.

your touch feels so good,
and your words taste divine.
but the touch that was so good
will leave me in due time.

you’re a daydream that doesn’t sit so sweet.
you’re the dark edges bumped in midnight streets.
we’re in your car but I still feel so alone,
counting the streets that go past, row by row.

those three words you have repeated time after time again

those three words, the same, meant differently each time.



I love you.



I love you, don’t be mad.

I love you, please stay.

I love you, let’s ****.

I love you, it’s not personal.

I love you, but no.



don’t tell me that you love me,

how dare you take that weapon into my back

as I tried to walk away.

anchors cast around my ankles

that were striding towards liberation.

don’t tell me that you love me

as we walked down the streets of downtown

after a month of silence in which I thought I had lost you.

but the way that your eyes smiled

when I echoed those words back,

it was a trap I couldn’t help but to fall into.

don’t tell me that you love me

when silence was on your end

after I drove 78 miles to see you.

later I came to learn that you were

getting high with your buddy Anthony.

don’t tell me that you love me

when you’ll never love anything more

than that chemical you inject into your body.

don’t tell me that you love me

and then go **** the girl

that had your heart before me.

you brought her into the relationship

from the very start,

an unintended *******.

don’t tell me that you love me

and not hold me in the night,

turning your back, yet again

keeping me on the outside.

don’t tell me that you love me

just to drag me back in.

don’t tell me that you love me

when you made sure to destroy

every ounce of self respect I had.



don’t tell me that you love me.