Your skin is kindling
and I am on fire. Burning,
hands outstretched in the white-hot
heat of the flames, palms up.
Beseeching, like my mother when she says
whatever but means I do not understand you.
Palms up. It is not a request but an admittance,
a compromise. She will never really know
me, a confused daughter standing still
in a bi-pass, straight passing bi. Cars passing
in sets of paired tires. I count them, take note
of matching treads and wonder where my other
half rides, if my mother would mind a tire
from the same brand, with all the same parts.

Your skin is a wildfire. I let it rage,
thinking that if this is a death sentence
and your hands exposed wire, electric
on my skin, I’d gladly take the chair. Sit
down; let me touch you, suffocate
in the carbon dioxide you expel. Let this not
be a dream. I have been asphyxiated for so long
in dreams my mother had. I was to be wed
to a nice man, to have the children she lost.
Create new souls to take root in the lifeless
plots of her prime. I think that this moment –
me, throwing myself on you, pyred
like a Salem Witch, would disappoint her.

She would love you if you were a man,
or at least if you could ease me into complacency.
If you had put me in that box that she or society
or guilt has built me, that casket-like thing
moving down the river like a Moses myth,
she might love us both. She would love me,
I hope, if she knew I have wanted men
the way I want you; singed and parched.
Palms up: an appeal to my senses. I’ve come out
of them already, and I am holding your hand,
on fire. Palms up: my counter-appeal. I become
Joan of Arc. She knew herself; she, at least, didn’t beg
to be heard in her final moments. She became
silent ashes and trusted her God. He would love her
even as every back she’d ever loved turned away.

some part of me will always want you.
it's not a statement.
there is always going to be one solitary
flower in the attic of my heart, withered
but still clinging to that one ray of sunlight
peeking through the wooden slats
barring the windows from viewing life.
and this is it; this is the summary of every poem,
every single one. i can't let you go.
i can't and i don't want to and yet in less than 3 months,
i'll never see you again. and god, thinking about it empties me
and pours out every ounce of my soul, until i'm standing
in my own essence, not able to do anything but blink.
then i think about seeing you again, in some cruel twist
of fate, or maybe at satan's hand - because god knows i'm not
good enough to be blessed - and i see you again, and you're so
beautiful, so vibrant and thriving and everything i dream and hope
you become. and i look at you and i cry, and i choke on my own breath,
and i grin until my insides spill out in front of me. and as i bleed out, you're there
ten thousand feet away and you don't understand, you never could
understand. but i see you, and time freezes, and everything inside of me bursts
back to life and rushes forward, seizing me with paralyzing fear
and an intense surge of happiness that cuts me open
at the very core, so thickly that everything i locked away comes toppling
over me, until i'm weighed down with every emotion slipping off of my
fingertips. and there's a thousand different places, a million
different ways it all plays out, but you're always handsome and so very much
exactly as you are now, and all it does is make me want to crawl into a corner,
forget my name and let everything drag me below waves of memories.
no matter how i think of you, no matter where and when and if i see you
ever again, it's too much to bear. too much to think of, too much to let
sit on my shoulder filled with expectations and disillusionment.
god, even then, part of me will want all of you.
but i still won't deserve it. i still won't deserve you.
i will never rack up enough good karma to earn you.
maybe it's for the best you'll be gone. because then i won't have
to think about you. out of sight, out of mind, right?
that's my lifeboat right now. because you'll sing to me,
jokingly and like you do to everyone,
and i'll just stand there immobile. it's like walking on glass whenever
we're near, and i never know what to do. how do i joke with you
when i see you as this mountain i'll never climb, this idol that
i'm praying to on my ****** knees? out of sight,
out of mind. it'll be over soon. it has to be, or i might go insane.
i love you so much i can't breathe, and yet i've convinced myself i'm not in
love with you so many times now that surely it has to be
true by now. oh my god what will i do without you
when you're so much and you're everything and you're my entire
high school experience even though we stopped being close a long time
ago and even though maybe we never were anything serious in your eyes
i still define myself by your laughter and that ******* voice
of liquid gold how can i sit and watch you leave me here when i want to leave
too and i want to be far away and i need to get out oh my god don't leave
me here it's terrifying and lonely without a familiar face that is the only
one who i've ever related to so fully and still managed to plant myself in the opposite end of the galaxy you reside in please come back why do you have
to leave why does everyone leave
i need you don't
go
please

Dear Charlie,
Nothing worthwhile is easy, right?
I've heard it before, a thousand different ways.
So that must mean that living is worthwhile
because it's hard. It's so ******* hard,
and it's like I'm fighting my apathy
every single second
while being chased around by the frenzy,
comprised of responsibilities and expectations
and that look in my mother's eyes when
she's proud.
I'm trying though. I'm trying
to get better.
This year was better than last year,
because I didn't swim a black sea.
I merely floated,
and only once was I pulled down.
In a month, I resurfaced.
I'm stronger, I think. I might have
that infamous Achilles' heel,
somewhere inside this ice cold, stone heart.
But the monsters didn't keep me,
didn't ruin any holidays,
didn't even make me consider
swallowing little white pill after little white pill.
I'm not perfectly healed, or even three quarters
okay. But I'm getting there,
Charlie.
You know what I mean.

In the next year,
I don't want to dream
to be happy. But I do want
to be even happier.
I want to do something,
whatever that may be.
And I want to see so many things,
and appreciate life.
I'm getting there, Charlie. I'm finding
my way there.
My only resolution next year
is to be able to say,
"I made it. I'm doing better.
I can live. And breathe.
I am going to be okay."
And that's more than enough,
isn't it, Charlie?

i am a body bag
full to the brim of
inadequacy, sure to sweep
you away with the same
seventeen words, all
bruised like ill-handled
peaches at the end of summer
as the farmers saunter off
towards fall's freshest fruits.
i bled green because envy
seeps from my pores; i lived a thousand
lives and still they all mix
together in monotonous shades
of gray.
we live and live and live
and get hurt; i have been
hurt but yet i cannot say
i have lived. which realization
is the more bitter?
in what world are these
two things never hand in hand?
i am weak and bitter and
poor where i am to be
rich.

i'm a princess cut from marble
and love doesn't come easily
christmas night, another fight
in sleep he sang to me

listen to my heart
you didn't close the door
don't you cherish me to sleep
dreaming my life away

i don't know where we're going
i had a feeling once
you and me are the same
remember that song i sang to you?

i look back to the one and only summertime
i'm not saying it's your fault
i'm out here a thousand miles from my home
there's no saving anything

welcome to the real world
you know i've always got your back
don't breathe too deep
another summer day has come and gone away

when that moon gets big and bright
i don't wanna talk
i wish i could hold you up
the mirrors don't reflect my face

i don't need nobody
the power lines went out
10 o'clock, late drive home
please know i'm trying

would you like to take a walk with me?
in the night i hear them talk
you said i didn't cry out to the clouds for nothing
you were always hard to hold

you've seen so many faces that i've never seen before
i just can't do it alone
but i know where you stand
i don't know where you've been

i'm lying in the ocean
"calm yourself", he says to me
i'll gather up the avenues
times square can't shine as bright as you

i'd run away
don't you suppose it's such a waste?
if my heart is always searching
when you're floating farther away

i'll be waking wishing i was right
is it me, is it you
we're not the same, dear
but i think we should run

if you hate me, why'd you come here baby?
no one has to understand
i guess it was never enough
there can only be one

in the sweeping sepia tones of my monotonous,
rushed life, my chest aches to be sprung free.

the urge of flight has never been more viscerally real,
more capable of pinning me to the spot
until my very bones burst from this body bag
suffocating my chest. never have i felt
so wickedly sick, so obviously the cliche
broken fragile thing bleeding out all over the page.

never have i felt so devoid of words.

it's like before, i was full -  brimming with half-thought
ideas and plots and characters, thrumming with
elementary concepts and words but at least i was flooded,
at least my soul was alive.

with the pain came a different flood, a tidal wave in the dead of
night, a cool soaking of the wicked flames that etch in
the monster's shadows. with a muse came my best
works, my raging thoughts, my torment and despair
and bloodthirsty butterflies battering my guts. with
the depression came the rawness that they lapped up,
crowed about, choked back tears. with another muse, i found
desire and passion and lust in the sinful tonguelipsteeth,
the bony handshipsframe. with all these things i found
the words and found a freedom, however temporary.

with change, i found an empty cavern.

the bottom of the grand canyon, less spectacular up close than from the top. less than. empty. hollowed out.

there is before the fall, there is during. they don't talk about the after.
or rather, they do, but there's aftermath - there's cracks and broken
bones and heaving chests and blood gushing, rushing
to the surface to see the light of day.

i bled out before i hit the ground. what happens when you get
the perfect ten, when you land with ease? what happens
when the potential is there, but the words dry up?

i feel potential in the moments wasted,
the beauty in all the strangeness,
the agony of existence. i see the people and
i want to be their storytellers, their cartographers,
their artist. i want them all as my muses.
i collect them and name them and tuck them away
in pockets too full of secrets, putting them aside for tomorrow,
another day, when i get back to the room but find
myself drowning out my words in other worlds.

i know the potential like the sailor knows the seas.
i see the beauty like the diamond in the rough.
i feel the agony in every second like the swish of
the guillotine.

swish. swish. swish.
out of time, out of mind
existence was a phase; here is the end
of our glory days.

if i could
i would fly

i would soar through clouds
and i would wave
at tiny people
through windows;
thin layers of glass, protecting people from
speeding dangers
on trains, and planes,
and automobiles.

but more likely, i
would fly to your window
and watch
as you dreamed about
city skylines and
country fields, as you sang
about stars in her eyes,
and i would think
how heavy you were;
so full of potential
and unbroken dreams.

maybe, if i could
fly, you would write about
me.
me, the bird
with the fragile wings;
the bird who flew and gave
you back inspiration in return for
faith, and belief.

the darkness sings and the pages sting
our hearts collide; they're shattering
we're drifting towards a new dimension,
our tongues so heavy with mutual indecision.
being hand in hand makes no difference
when we're separated by eons of distance
our spirits yearn to work this out
out bodies ache to tune logic out
but our souls are broken, and
you're not sure they can mend;
my thoughts are a token,
and i do not want this to end.
our prayers read like devotions,
our words bleeding emotion,
and though you'd never admit it
you can't fight a tear
and though i'll never forget it,
the fact is that you aren't here
it isn't physical distance that truly sets us apart,
but rather the paths of our future
and the ache in your heart
i cannot stand here, blocking your way
and you cannot afford to let your dreams slip away
maybe someday you won't be a fantasy
and i won't pour over every line

all i ask now, is for you to be kind:
if it's the last time, don't do this
like you're about to say
goodbye.

we're two beings
lost in outer space
missing pieces
never on the same page
floating further away
it's a sight to see
the moon girl
and the sun boy
constantly receding
flying away effortlessly
not even gravity
as a solid chain link

i want to punch you in the face
with my lips, darken
the nape of your neck
black and purple and blue
it's indecent how you roll my name
like a toothpick caught between your smirk,
and my lips ghosting across your jawline
is my deepest fantasy,
the bane of my existence,
and your eyes, those
gemstones embedded in hot white
sand, a sparkling sweet
hawaiian ocean blue
and god, don't i want to drag my fingers
through that radiant golden hair
and drag you down to my level,
here in the seventh circle of hell.

we're both a little ****** up,
maybe me more than you,
but tell me that this doesn't feel
like an aching, forgotten truth;
tell me that this doesn't feel
like catastrophic madness,
like ordained sin to you?
the timbre of your voice
can only get deeper, can only quake
my ******* bones - down my bones,
i feel a holy shiver
i want to kneel at your altar,
pay homage to the gods, regardless
if you believe or not.

because surely, a being as
flawless and sublime
cannot exist naturally;
surely, your very essence was raised
from the divine?

you smile in my direction and
my heart
skips
orbits have changed course,
empires fallen,
centuries passed
since you last smiled
so familiar.
warm and welcoming
waves crashing calmly against
marbled sand,
teaching my heart to beat however you direct
i am yours
a slave to love
but you are still
blinded
and oceans away
too far to
reach.

crying over you like
i'm thirteen again
and i can't fathom life
without you once again,
can't believe i'm losing
you for a second time,
can't believe that these
same regrets still weigh
down so heavily on this
fragile, broken down
chest.

how can i love
something so much
when it was never
mine from the
start?

sick to my stomach,
shaking hands, lips
trembling while the
hourglass drips grains
of sand. time drags on,
time flies by, time to
turn around and say
my final goodbyes.

shivers wracking thick
shoulders, crawling down
my spine, somehow i pray
that you realize you
are always on my mind.

words shriek in my head
creep out from beneath my bed
bouncing, bouncing
opaque veins, violent blue
bark that cracks, centuries new
drowning, drowning
you soul is trapped; restrained
my fingers cannot quite grasp
save me, save me,
the water stings, slaps, unclean
and we monotonously grieve
empty, empty
walk a line, thick not fine
cast a whisper to the gallows
sing, sing
walk alone missing patches of skin
pretending something remains
help, help
eye level, shuttered blows
sagging shoulders and echoed cusps
follow, follow
sink and bob and ebb and flow
i follow the River i follow the Sun
go, go

don't carve their name in trunks,
with your father's father's father's blade
don't scrawl across your papers
initials and immortal dates
don't buy a pet together,
don't let them into your bed.
nothing is permanent,
not even the ticking time bomb
dangling high above,
don't let them be everything,
don't attach them to your soul,
until there's nothing that's quite yours,
until you're one being, fused and whole
don't let them touch your heart,
or say that you are their's.
with every utterance of "mine",
a piece of your being dies, right there.
you can't get back the words
you strung across their lips, for
nothing can return
when it's touched new skin.

it is 3:42 and i can't
stop
thinking of you

i don't know your name, or
what comforts you when you are sad
i am unaware if you like my favorite books
or if, when reading them,
would understand
what i am trying to say;
not in so many words,
but between the lines
and trapped in the connotations
of phrases i've loved
for all of my awareness.

your dreams are a mystery;
someday, i will pull them
from your mind
in between the meeting of our
lips
and then we will explore them,
make them reality and truth
and maybe yours
might line up with mine
and we will claim
the world, like it has been
reborn; ours for the taking;
new.

i am not aware of
where you most desire
to be
is it by the sea or
in the middle of rome,
your hands rooted
deep into history,
learning from the ghosts
haunting each corner of
every street.

nor do i know if you care
that i react to obvious twists,
or shocks that feel
like the greatest earthquake,
shaking my core and
the ground beneath my feet
and does it make you laugh when
i yell at people in horror movies?
does it seem sweet that
i speak to my pets
as though they are people,
as though they understand?
will you smile,
fond and sweet,
when i tell you the story
of my first time to new york,
for the one thousandth time,
of how i saw potential,
and life,
and everything that
i wanted to
be?

i try to picture you but
all i can see is a
white,
blank canvas
too far away to see the dots that
connect to form
you.

hopefully, maybe,
when the fates entangled our futures
and we are finally
****** together, we'll
fit
into each other
perfectly.

stumbling around through bustling places
all these people run in personal races
i walk among them, stepping one foot at a time
trampling on the sidewalk the same way i try to rhyme
question and concerns circle 'round my head on the daily
and i know there's no heat under my feet,
nor a passion in my chest,
nor a map in my head,
nor a compass to guide the way
life is either/or, not made for indecision
the weather here didn't catch the memo,
since the sky's half gray, half blue
i'm staring at the skyline missing somebody
but **** it all if it i know who
the going gets tough but sometimes
the tough just need to lie down,
and the world keeps spinning even
when it all falls down
in the here and and now
i sing it loud, sing it proud,
follow the crowd

following a path tread by a million others,
am i a boat flying towards shore or
a girl wading through this
honorific storm?

i haven't searched for you
these past few days,
hours, minutes -
shuffling by, ticking,
homecoming countdown, seconds
until the winning pass
changes the course of

thousands upon thousands of
waves, sweeping cluttered shores,
stealing possessions and castaways;
sinking, sinking, sinking
sinking into

the ashes of cities, ones we
rebuild because Americana, nostal-
gia, and sinful pride.
we are gluttons of

ages and times and the faithful
pronouns me, myself, and i shout
into the void of inevitable oblivion
and each time i touch pen
to dead, amnesiac trees i am
begging for it and

you look like a time that
i will reminisce on to
kids whose father i settled -
that "i" again, so vain
and undeserving of it. so

your eyes light up, stars,
the northern lights. do they still?
do you pray? you must. it's how
you've been commemorated in
this barren landscape

graced with crystalline blue
pools, i remember,
tinges of you are seeping through
i bet you own the same guitar, treat it
like a child, i bet you're too close
so then you distance

is a bittersweet thing, but it has
given me a strange sense of zen,
peace, clarity, serenity,
finality.
because i haven't searched for you
these past few days,
hours, minutes -

i'm trying i'm trying i'm trying i'm trying
i am, i am, i am
trying, eradicating,
disease.

a bed is just a bed
until it's not anymore
it's refugee from trouble,
it's home away from home
it's where your tears well
undisturbed in the dark
it's where two people ******
and another two made love,
it's where he turned with pits
for eyes and said, "maybe you should go"
it's where he ran when hope evacuated
his body and his soul
it's where your dreams knit together,
where you ghosts reappear,
where your body recharges
and where your fear stalks near

a bed is permanent, a fixture
in your life
yet this bed is not, could not,
ever be mine

dressed in disguise, wearing
a pad and a topper,
this mattress has felt the bodies
of similarly empty hundreds,
reminding me that this bed is an illusion
much like this life i live,,
the sheets constantly coming untucked
as they reject my existence
still, it accepts me during the night,
offering no tangible resistence
though beds are inanimate objects,
there souls find ways to roam
and in this bed, i am acutely aware
that i no longer have a permanent home

i think a lot about how
things that happen to people make
them different, change their
ways and point of view.

i think about the boy
whose dad died in the eighth grade
from cancer. i think about
how someone who was a ****
at heart turned to words
and found himself again, found his
father in verses about aged trees
and kicking footballs so high,
they're weightless for a
little while.

i think about my former best
friend whose dad left her mom
when she was little, and it hurt
her so much that she took her fists
to friends and enemies alike. i think
about how she used a sharp tongue
to drag others down with her, to shrink
them and make her feel better about
herself; i don't blame her for that.

i think about the girl who is so
afraid she'll never meet somebody
again who will love her that she stays;
she stays with a boy who does not love her
or care enough to tell her how beautiful
she is every single day.

i think about the boy so hidden
behind weight he desperately lost
and the mountain that his superstar best
friend's voice has created
that when he finally got his spotlight,
he tattooed it across his forehead so
everyone knew that he is greater,
that he should be recognized.

i think about you and how
somewhere along the way, between
one of your best friend's tragic accident
and the year i didn't get to know you,
you gave yourself up
so unflinchingly to god and his
words
and yet you bathe in a pool of temptation
because the people surrounding you have
been all but blood since birth.

i think about myself
and how i picked myself up
and glued myself together after
three years, surrounded by debt
and a lack of the most important
thing to living, consumed by betrayal
and the death of a beloved,
drowning in you and feelings i didn't
know could be so strong,
all while encased in a bulging skin poisoned
with (self) hate and withering
with blackness.

i think about how people become who they
are, how we struggle to survive,
how we find ourselves. i think
about it so much that often i wish i could
understand every reason, every decision,
that it was okay to ask.
life is tricky, but everyone
has a cheat to make it through
each wretched level
of existence.

I.
one of those days where
the skies cry for you.
when you wake up,
you move like the undead.
your eyes are glued shut.
you look back on when
you fell asleep and compare it to
amnesia.

II.
one of those moments where
you're the kid alone at the lunch table.
you're hiding out in the places
they never think to look,
running from the future
like it's a ***** filthy crook.
you look behind you and hear
pounding sneakers, see the
sepia-tinged flashbacks of mistakes
and regrets.
you're running for a break,
ready to change your luck.
but cells come from cells,
regret begets regret.

III.
one of those days where your bones
shudder and creak.
dragged down like an anchor in the
washed out, raging sea.
you grin because this isn't drowning; it's
the way you smile.
you start seeing visions of a life you could
have had, wanted bad, failed to grab.
it's nice to open your eyes
and not feel the stinging for a while.

IV.
one of those days where
you could have.
could have loved him, could have
belonged, could have hoped.
there might have been an end to the
hangman's rope.
you blocked your shot.
some selfish dreamer with a taste for
masochism shoves the dagger in
your back, and whispers, "what if?"
"what if this is all you've got?"

V.
one of those days where
you have to learn how to write.
you never wrote for anyone else,
never jumped from any great heights.
it always come back to him, every word,
every line and you still sometimes
find yourself convincing yourself that you're
really, really fine.
today, i am trying to find a new salvation
in between these broken rhymes,
trying to create a reason and
trying to try.

VI.**
one of those days
where you have to leap
in order to learn
how to fly.

i've been thinking a lot about regrets lately.

i know it's because time is running out,
i know it's because i'll never see you
again. i know it's because there's
a forest fire raging green
through these tired smiles.
i know it's because those baby blues
have been drooping heavier
each day and yet no one seems to see.
i know it's because each time
i look at you, i'm paralyzed with
could-have's and maybe's.
i know it's because each time you
open your mouth, i think
"this is the last time i'll hear him
sing, talk, laugh, tell stories,
mumble and scream and be happy."
i know it's because each of those
seventeen muscles it takes to smile
at you in hopes you'll smile back
weigh a ton apiece. i know
it's because you don't know where you
want to go to college and i keep hoping
you'll end up where i want to be, even if
it means i run away should i see you there.
i know it's because i wear more perfume
every day in hopes it might send
signals to your brain and cause a
change of mind, a change of heart.
i know it's because i hear you
in every lyric and i'm poisoned by
these scenarios and worlds of paradise
i dream up in the middle of flipping a page,
writing notes, reading the same page
thirty times in a row until the words are
reduced to stains across every page.
i know it's because i watch you move
and see grace where you see bumbling,
steady feet. i know it's because i
can picture meeting you again years in the future.

i've been thinking about regrets and there
are a thousand, each one another pound
pushing me forward, as if
i can redeem myself by walking a million
miles. but my biggest is when i convinced
my heart that telling you would have
consequences that i could not bear.

darling
don't you know that you can't
protect them
forever?
don't you see that they are pulling
your soul out from under you,
dragging you down with anchors?
can't you see that they're coming for you?
do you see their scythes
made from silver and shadows and your nightmares?
do you already feel their teeth,
those glinting fangs oozing your blood?
don't you realize that you're trapped here,
locked between the jaws of Earth herself
and trapped by numbered chains
spelling out things you can't even read?
don't you see, my darling,
that you are a void?
with each pledge, fact, joke and aid you offer,
they reap your breaths until one becomes your
last,
until you're possessed,
locked away by your own brain.
darling, please learn that there are so few
bonds between people
that are made of the dust in both our
bones and the stars.
they will not tie you down
but lift you, tethering themselves to your Greatness
until you're afloat
until once again you breathe, free of toxins
and torturous elements.
don't you see that? can't you believe that?
you cannot fight this battle on your own.
you're the hero of your story, but even heroes
form alliances with others
in case they need a little help.
darling, it may take a village to raise a child.
in your case, it only takes loyalty to create
a lifeline.

i kind of want to *******
and be through
with that smug smirk
gracing angelic lips
and the infatuation brewing
in the folds of my washed out brain
like i have the patience,
let alone the time,
to sit here aimlessly
and fantasize.

there's something wicked
in how your hips move
stealthy like a panther,
midnight inky blue,
something bitter in my mouth
like your ******* attitude.
you don't say my name,
you don't bother to know it,
i don't share it;
got no reasons to show it
waves upon waves,
blazing brilliant azure
sin walks alive, fractured
and malignant
your lips twitch sinister,
and i find myself enraptured, captured,
fixated
on your voluminous luxe cherry lips
how delicately your tongue slips
god your hands should be here
i need them on my hips
gentle pressure from the very tiptips
is this what it's like,
weightlessness?

each day i see a shade of you,
crimson bled, royal hue
shadows stretch inside my head
while you break the springs of my bed
demons wrestle; my fingers grip your head
i let you create chaos and slay fleeting time
set ablaze, burning alive
i'm paralyzed here in the heat of the day
your toxins thrum on,
zinging through my addict's veins

i think i need to *******
before i'm swallowed whole
a million little pieces suspended,
helplessly on hold,
in a moment, london comes crashing down
and i'm broken, unable to make even
a fraction of coherent sound
you filthy beast, on the prowl
now i'll steal every precious hour
go on and lock me in
your ivory tower
let your hair down, ***** gold as corn
i'm forever yours,
no longer forlon

let's be candid, here.
this is a **** joke, your
ability to waltz back into
my world as though you didn't
make your escape, leave me to my
peace, pick up your cap
on the way out
it hurt; it hurts because
it mattered, you matter,
still, after all this time
you were more than something -
you were everything.
everything i hung my hopes on,
the coat rack for my dreams.
the day you left was the best thing
that's ever happened to me, so
why are you still here,
haunting me like the Holy Spirit
in the doubtful parts of my brain
take your charm and words,
serve up that famous smile to some other
poor girl, give my condolences
to the next body first in command
on the unrequited train to hell.
no return tickets. no turning
back, either crash or die here, doomed
unless there's an emergency escape hatch
so how dare you come back
here, how dare you show your face?
leave. get out. find another soul
to terrorize with your laugh.
you're not welcome here. never, ever
come back.

broken boy,
let me cradle your
mind; let me be the evacuation
center you resort to when your soul
needs some rescuing. i will save a place
for your heart right between
the fissures running through the canyon
my hands create.
these padded walls do nothing to stop
those dreams; they won't
slow your tears or comfort you when the terrors
are too heavy to bury on your own. they'll just
absorb those screams you've been suffocated
by, the ones that make you bite your lip until
waves of crimson pain crash and flow
and you can taste boiling iron trickling down the cracks
in your worn lips.
broken boy,
i can't fix you. if only i could.
i wish that i could **** your pain through my veins,
let it poison me so that you could be liberated from
the demons clawing at your walls.
i can't.
i can only offer comfort on those dark days, when the
restraints you've placed upon yourself drive you to the brink
of madness. i can soothe you when your fingernails are ******
stubs and the monsters strip you of your soul. i can
slow the gears in your mind and do more than the
ticking, whirring of a broken-down brain to aid your sanity.
white cushioned walls can't ease your worries. they don't
guarantee exorcisms, and there's a no return on your stay
inside this vacant chamber chock-full of shadows.
hold on, broken boy. i know you'll
find that light at---

we find ourselves in words and phrases,
the moon consistently turning through its phases.
we live by the sun, love by the moon,
and each day i wish that i could see you soon.
under cloudy skies, my mood is weathered
and around your neck is a wreath spotted with heather.
and though distance is time and time an illusion,
you glance my way and i find my willpower in ruins.
at the end of the world, i'd lay by your side;
even if a comet came, and surely we would die.
regardless of the afterlife, and whether we agree,
the stars spell out a destiny fated for you and me

in your eyes i see the past,
on your palm i trace the future
with your lips i taste salvation,
even though it's a damnable sin,
and in your smile i see creation,
and with your laugh the flames begin.
engulfed and engaged
by the smooth swish of your hair.
befuddled and betrayed
by the blush these pale cheeks wear.
though you huff and hide your heart,
it bleeds out through your lyrics,
and through your music i find a home again
if only you let me near it.
in the night you break the silence
with the softness of your moans
and through your love i've come to realize
i was never truly alone.

i keep falling in love with boys
who have bright blue eyes,
who have smiles that glitter
and gleam like something terrible
and sweet, brutal and mean

i think about it a lot -
these boys that circle me,
one old and one new,
one golden, one silver,
both wrapped in shades of blue

navy and cerulean;
it's a drastic difference, i know
but they're literally as different as day and night,
one open and clear,
one vast and cold

the gold one was perfect, in all possible ways
he sang and played instruments from a-z,
he strummed chords and crafted melodies
like apollo in the sky,
immortally ignorant of real life

the other one, the silver one,
he's quite the gloomy character
he likes it loud and rough, wears black
and looks so ******* tough,
my heart takes off on a high paced run

and yet i find qualities
that remind me of the other,
the way they've torn my words away,
scattered them on the pages,
ripping thoughts from my lips and fingers

they make me like the dam, burst
and overflowing,
both boys are so distant,
too much of a leap,
yet i can't help my fascination with those i cannot reach

so yes, these boys are different
the prep and the loner
but alike, they've stolen my heart
and those blue, engulfing eyes
have dragged me continuously under

sometimes
when i'm feeling low and i can't
speak, you look at me.
it is not an earth shattering,
heaven quaking, explosion
when you do. but it is
the way you are
attentive
and how you seem to care
that makes me feel
as though i am
important.

when you were thirteen,
you told me how
you hated it here, and
wanted to escape.
i idolized you then,
because i needed someone who
understood
the heavy desire
of needing to be anywhere,
everywhere,
but here.

when you were sixteen,
i told you my plans of
traveling to London
and going to school there for one year,
maybe two.
you asked me why, and
i couldn't answer
because you didn't
remember.

i'm trying
isn't that all i can do?
isn't it all i have left,
the only breath that's slicing
heavily through my chest,
ripping through the chambers
of this empty hollowed heart,
can't you hear it beating? do you hear
the fireworks exploding, right
from the start? razor blades
gliding down my throat
embedded in my tongue
and i've never prayed so hard for
someone to be happy because your
smile is like the sun and oxygen and if
i don't see it, at least once a day, how am i
to survive? you were here and then
you weren't.
i've written it a thousand times, i'll write
it a thousand times more -
don't go.
don't forget me.
you are my biggest regret.
not because i said too much, but
because i never said
enough.

It isn't like I didn't try to forget you. God, I tried. I tried it all. I banned you from my thoughts only to dream of you endlessly, mourning your appearance in that suspended place while secretly praying for more. I cast you away every time you spoke but found myself listening harder than before, ******* in details like the color of your shirt, or how your lips molded to the words falling from your tongue looked as ****** as how you might someday kiss a lover, whom I always dreamed was me. I ached for your touch only to deny myself oxygen when we were in the same room, relying on a supply of imaginary wishes to fuel my laughter. Most of all, I let your voice crack me into shards, the scales and spikes successfully keeping out both you and everyone else, effectively leaving me to my own filthy disease. I tried to forget you, and push you away - all of it, only successful when you were far from sight, excommunicated from my tumultuous brain.

But it never quite worked how I needed it to, because some part of me is still ridiculously and foolishly drunk with the idea of you... of us.