You're just a washed up superstar
Not even 17

Chains of charm bracelets and promise rings that appear in your hand like poison ivy crawls up a wall
Your tattoo, an artfully rendered serpent in a bikini climbs up your arm
Tar from the cigarettes you inhale like they're oxygen climbs up the walls of your lungs
Can't you see?
Promise rings mean nothing if you give them out like free candy

He's in love with me she says
He's gonna marry me someday she says
Did you see what that mouth do? He says
Do you see that *** swing? he says

I know you.
Living off of broken guitar strings and LSD
Hollows of your cheeks amplifying your voice, your song that everyone no longer listens to

You make mistakes,
In bottles of ***** you drink, 5 they say
5 girls in one night they say
Suspended for 5 days they say
5 cuts up each arm they say
You're in the hospital with a tube shoved down your throat and a dozen girls weeping at your bedside
Spoiler alert. None of them leave you. They actually believe that you have 11 cousins.

You're Apollo 13
A mission that fails a space shuttle that bursts into flames at the slightest
Static
Shock

The  first time I can remember writing a poem was in 3rd grade. We wrote haikus about springtime and when we had 4 we sewed the paper together with pink yarn and gave it to our mothers for valentine's day.  The first poem that I read was about friendship.I didn't like it.The first poem that touched me was about suicide. It talked about pretty elfin faces turned up to the light and how when the blood splattered it looked like a rose a bouquet of flowers between her legs she said no he said yes, more.  The thing was I thought that pulling a trigger on yourself was beautiful. I had this image of a skinny girl in a white dress leaning over a toilet letting all the bad pour out of her pink lips.  thought that carving his name into your stomach fat was meaningful and that scars were a thing to be proud of. I thought that only eating celery and working out until you fainted was cinematic. The reality is that the blood splattered because the bullet cut a dime sized hole in the back of her mouth and came out where her ponytail would have been. The pressure shattered her larynx and lodged pieces of bone, teeth, and cartilage in the surrounding skin. Her tongue was torn to shreds and her metal retainer melted into her gums.  There weren't flowers between her legs, there wasn't even a ******.  She never said no but she never said yes. They were in love and wanted to be together but she didn't want him. She pretended she enjoyed it and cried in the bathroom when he fell asleep.  When you zoom into the picture of the bulimic girl in a white dress you will see that she isn't a teenager she's 40 but she still looks like a child. Starvation prevented her bones from growing. Her lips are chapped and she has sores lining her gums, burst blood vessels in both eyes. Her hair is long but thin and dry and her eyelashes had fallen out and never grown back. She is kneeling over her daughter who offered to pay for rehab's toilet because she ate too much during thanksgiving.  She bruises easily and the purple isn't the color of a night sky it is the color of deoxygenated blood vessels popping under her skin and congealing like fat on a turkey.  Carving your name into your rolls doesn't make him come back to you, it prevents you from ever wearing a bikini. Stop making self harm and mental disorders seem beautiful and romantic, because there is nothing beautiful about having to bury your only child because he forgot to eat and used the razors one too many times.

beauty is the curve of his bottom lip
beauty is the hollow at the base of his throat
beauty is in the mole right above his belly button
beauty is his hipbones peeking out of his jeans
beauty is his abnormally long toes
beauty is the crinkle in the outer corners of his eyes
beauty is his crooked teeth
beauty is his eyelashes, longer than any girls
beauty is the gentle bend of his shoulders when he bends over his guitar

he is the reason to smile on a rainy day
the quickening of my heart when my phone vibrates
he is the doubt and uncertainty that vanish with a single "'love you"
he is the feeling of a fire on a cold night
he is the random smile
the wink
the drunk text at 2 am
the sober text at 2 pm
the call where we fall asleep together
1000 miles apart

I videochatted him last night
I opened my laptop
slipped on a **** little black dress
turned on the webcam
video connected
I didn't say a word but i did as i was told
slithered my hands around my body pretending that they,
they were his hands
I slipped that **** little black dress over my hips and over my shoulders and over my head
I smiled and put ******* into my mouth
hard
I
bent over
arched my back
tossed my hair over my shoulder as i moaned his name
his hand is moving quickly into his pants
his hand, my hand wants to be in his pants
and he is sighing and i am licking my lips
when he is finished and we hang up
I take my ******* and slide them in between my legs pretending that they are his hands

I crave you
your fingertips gliding up my back
your breath hot and wet in my ear, in my mouth, down my neck
i want you to see me without anything on
i want to see you the same way
i want you to pull me closer until the space between us doesn't exist
i want you to pull me so close, hold me so tight
that i would be afraid of my ribs shattering
i want to feel you underneath the sheets, you body and mine
i want to scream
i want your fingernails digging into my back
i want your breath coming faster and harder in my ear
i want to see you, the control i have over you etched in every line on your face, your head tipped back and you sighing my name like its the only word you know


i want to wake up next to you,
the morning after
and feel your chest rise and fall and know that you are dreaming about me
i want to kiss your sleepy lips and hold your body close to mine and make you dream about me

a teardrop of tangy flavor on the tip of my  tongue
a dome of sunset gold dripping down my throat
the sensation of my stomach contracting around an acidic bite