I can't find the strength
to call you back--I'm weathered
from the way you fade

Skeletal limbs,
Collapsed sky, illumine--there's
Beauty in breakdown

When I heard the news,
I crumbled.
Piece by piece, shards of my heart
fell away,
uncovering a revelation:
You are not the villain after all.

Or maybe, you're clambering.
Grasping onto any similarity
she and I share.
Searching
to fill the void left by me
like I filled that of the one before.

And I realize
maybe we're all just trying to fill
the spaces left by the ghosts
of those we once knew.

Addiction
     never ends,
          temptation and sin.

Consumption,
     and then I’m lost.

Drowning,
     floundering,
          gasping for air.

Count the days
     until I feel alright again.

But my addiction
     betrays me
          and with one glance
               at a shard of glass
                    I relapse.
23 times—
     a redemption to make up for
          time lost.

Bruises—
an amethyst stain of merlot
spreading on white carpet.
The deep blue of the glistening Belizean sea
and the hot weight of you settled beside me.
Crimson blood and rising pain—
I scar myself because of you again.
The flat hazel of your eyes
the last time I saw you,
hollowed by suffering.  

Accusatory and pleading,
these bruises bleed fresh and tender
on the surface of my heart
as I will myself to forget you
for the last time.

There's never enough tea*, she said,
a single, cold finger tracing the lip
of an empty mug.

This is why I don't speak much
Because he doesn't listen
And my declaration gets carried away
Like a whisper in the wind