I finally felt the sun on porous red rocks that day –  
7000 feet closer to heaven, 7000 feet from air that hurts to breathe,
I asked you: why don’t we feel like this every day?
and I didn’t think about the blades I used,
or the pills you took ,
all I could think was those red rocks,
that hot sun, the endless sky, and this beautiful earth sprawled
at our feet, like at that moment we owned it,
the three of us back together again
we breathed – finally free.

but our heaven is 1,000 miles away now,
your absence hurts just the same,
and I’m back to suffocating on this Indiana air,
and all that clouds my mind is
we still have this beautiful earth
and that beautiful week
to float away with.

You are the first I've loved
with eyes the color
of the endless sky,
you're a
love
suicide
let me get lost in the
cloud of your soul

Breathe life into
the skeleton of my soul,
I want to taste
your smoke lips.

I like it here
in your ocean,
quench the flames of my pain
in the midnight
of your embrace

I am desperate –  
     for all the effortless things

just so my blood has a chance to
     sing for something
          again

but out of all the open air that
     has kissed my skin
          and all the people who
                were lucky to love me

the only easement I knew
     was you
           and before, during, after

well,
     I was never enough for myself –
          not once, not ever

so I find myself
     aching for the effortlessness
          but not aching for you in the way
       I used to

I can’t find it – my effortlessness –
     without you
          because I believe they
               are one in the same

so I wander –
     a drifting soul –
          from progression to progression

congratulations

you seem so happy

I am so proud

all these tangible things –
     they will never bring me the
          easement I knew from only you

the smell of iron,
and spreading blood
across my palm
let me tell you my own future
from the ****** hand prints on
bathroom tile and
the taste of beer and *****
that still lingers.

the door slams,
you heave me into your arms
and we sit on toilet porcelain,
this is me in my most honest hour--
the warmth of skin on your neck
mixing with the warmth of the blood on my palm,
and I can't tell which I want more now.
you're not dying tonight
but if this is what dying gets me,
let me fade away in your arms.
listen to the sound of heartbreak
as my facade shatters like glass,
and I sob against your velvet skin.

soft words, gentle hands,
as you clean my blood
when all I can say is don't
your voice--deep and sure
I can still hear it
just like I can still taste the blood
from my own veins.

now I am left with a nasty scar
that tells the story
of our friendship
let me read you my own future
from these blood-free palm lines,
and I still can't see you in it.

You ask me my thoughts,
but how do I tell you I've been considering all the different things I can break to create critical scars on beautiful veins ever since you took my favorite blade?
You remember when we drank strawberry milk out of wine glasses?
Or that time we walked in the rain,
slowing instead of speeding up because
rain doesn't wash anything away
not skin or scars or secrets
and how do I tell you that I don't love you,
and that I really wanted to run that day?
But instead I stare into ocean eyes, smile, and just tell you
I'm lost

I listen to the thunder and
wonder
where you went

I want you to inhale me
smoke my soul
and burn whatever you find left
that you may stumble across
along the way

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

I’ve gotta go home and clean,* you say.
Clean my scent from your sheets,
I want to tell you
Come closer, baby,
Untangle my limbs and
caress me down,
orchestrate my symphonies.
Didn’t you see the stars, too?

I remember your breath all
over me
and how I tasted my very existence
within it.
I remember seeing infinity
in the golden hazel of your eyes,
those **** bedroom eyes,
soothing me past my boundaries,
hands pushing past my hipbones
and into my infinity.

And I want to tell you that I still taste
your lips on my tongue
and I still feel your teeth grazing my skin but
I don’t tell you any of these things.
I look you dead in the eye
those bedroom eyes, boring into mine.
I wonder if you’re playing back the scene
you moving over me
and I say, Okay.

Our whole existence
narrowed into one word
and in that moment I think I hate you
but the thought of your hands on me
still makes my sun rise each day
and I wonder if maybe
I love you in spite of
all the things telling me not to.

I search for you in the late nights
at the bottom of the bottle.
I look for you in the embers striving to burn
at the end of a dying cigarette.
I ache for you in the arms of a stranger,
a man with different proportions,
a deeper voice, a rougher face.

I’m searching for you in all the places
you swore you’d never be
just like you swore you’d never leave.
But the pale hands caressing your satin skin,
pale hands that weren’t mine
burn in my mind and
I wonder how I’ll ever find you in the places
you swore you’d never be
just like you lost me,
when you swore you’d never leave.

You hang low in my sky,
     like the moon before the morning—
          an intruder amongst the burning, beating,
               rising sun of my heart.

You make my tides roll,
     and you’re too hot to hold—
          blistering my fingertips
               and branding the melting core
                    of my soul.

Inhale,
exhale,
and inhale again.

Blood rises and quickens.
Rushing,
like the resin abducting my oxygen
and holding it hostage.
The smoke before me
that twists and dances and
duplicates,
making love to the air.

I look at these strands
past a foggy haze of uncertainty,
wondering how they fit together
even better than we did
when they are not
tangible bodies.

The strands, they don't hold a heart or listen
to each other breathe as they fall asleep.
And I wonder how this smoke,
how these **** dead wisps,
love each other better than
we did.

Bruises,
an amythest stain of spreading merlot
on white carpet,
the deep blue of the Belizean sea and
the hot weight of you beside me,
crimson blood and rising pain as I
scar myself because of you again,
the flat hazel of your eyes
the last time I saw you.  
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.