Don't you
Abuse your
Right to live
Everyday, all the time

This was not love making.
This was sin
and the devil victoriously
danced between the sheets.

****
isn't always dark alleys
and whistles
and pepper spray.
It isn't always
a stranger,
they don't always
look dangerous.
Whether it is
your boyfriend
or your teacher
or your uncle,
they are no longer on your side.
This is your attacker.
Do not be silent.
Do not be afraid to make a scene.
Whether it is a movie theatre
or a street corner
or your bedroom,
yell,
scream,
curse,
bite,
spit,
let no resonate from your lungs
so they cannot say they didn't hear you.
Send him home,
tell your parents,
tell your friends,
tell the police.
****
is not always
drunk men outside bars
or keys clenched between white knuckles.
Sometimes **** is silent.
Do not be silenced.

There is something beautiful about two sad people who agree to hurt each other.
Something comforting.
It is a comfort only very damaged people understand- the tacit agreement to cause pain, and to receive it.
Pleasure is for people who have what they want.
But for those of us who are starving, ours is best peppered with suffering.
Being with someone who understands that carries its own worth-
I don't want you to make me feel good.
I couldn't stand it if you did.
I don't want you to touch me gently, or ask if I'm alright, or stop to look into my eyes.
I am starving, and so are you: I want your teeth.
I want you to make me hurt. And I want to hurt you.
I want you to hurt me because I'm not him, and I want to hurt you because you're not her.
We want to see each other suffer because we are starving and we need to feel that someone else is.
Don't hold back. I want you to lower me because I'm too good for her.
Don't love me, don't caress me. Dig your nails in. Drip candlewax on my stomach.
One step down from torture is all I can stand in the way of human connection, when it isn't her.
Punish me for looking at her like a baleful puppy tonight, even as you waited in my room with your soft skin and your sharp teeth.
There is nothing you can do that will be too violent, too brutal, too sadistic.
I don't want to be loved right now.
I am too raw.
I want to be touched. I want to be ruined. Leave marks. Smear lipstick.
Lower me because I am
Too
****
Good for her.
Let this heart know on no uncertain terms that its needs don't matter.
Help me **** it. Help me pin my demons to the bed and make them writhe, and I will do the same for you.
Let's exorcise our loves tonight and banish them to hell.
Let's tell our skin that it is irrelevant.
Let's say "*******" to the things that bind us. I will cut your heart out for him.
I will kiss your scars, not to heal them but to remind you that when you put them there you fought for something, something we both fight for now.
Hurt me. Fight her. Do it for her.
Do it for her because I'm not good enough to hurt.
Do it for her because I'm TOO good to hurt.
Crush me.
You could boil me alive and it wouldn't make up for her, so at least leave me bruised.  
I will give you what you need, and you will give me what I need: not love, but contact.
Please,
Let my heart know on no uncertain terms that its needs
Don't
Matter.

There is something beautiful about two sad people who agree to hurt each other.

I am paperwhite,
                a delicate bird,
                                  thrashing and ensnared.
Paperwhite,
             and bones of feathers;
                                  light and airy.

I fly,
         fly away in the ceaseless night sky.
Snowflakes stick to my face,
                                  my eyelids,
                                               my garments;
That are knit together too big on my frame, draping over
My winged shoulders and shielding me,
like a wall
Protecting a delicate feather from windy skies.
Running, fleeing.
                             Gasping, dying.
Blood starts flowing,
                                and rushes down my forehead,
Thin, the kind of flow that won’t stop.
It flows over my eyes,
                                       down my chiseled face
And pools in my collarbones creating a lake.
I look into the distance;
                                         staring back at me are ashen eyes.
I am homesick for somewhere I’ve never been.
Longing, longing,
                               flying, running.
Running home,
                                              running far.
Reaching with open arms,
                                        Reaching closer.
Reaching out,  
                          breaking the cage keeping me.
A mucky ocean of dirt and sediment,
Clears into an open water,
                                      a clear oasis,
                                                          a path.
Folded like paper, flying like a bird.