The leak of acid
from her eyes, stains the carpet
and will burn her thighs

I feel like I am keeping Beasts in my chest
and they claw and cut
I can feel my insides, slippery with the blood they’ve chased loose
The space beneath my breast is becoming tighter and the weight of my torso as I lie on my bed is becoming heavier

I’m keeping the gates tied closed
and so I’m left with a rampage stuck in my heart
They’re eating me up from the inside out
soon I will be hollow

Whenever I open my mouth
I hear a blood curdling howl
To look into my own eyes is to see their imprisonment
But I will not let them go
They’re mine to keep

I find myself thanking god your eyes are blue
So that I can blame these bruised knees on the feeling of falling on ice
So that I can piece together some vague explanation
as to why my skin feels heavier when I’m around you

The blue from your eyes makes me feel like I carry the sky

I blame your gaze for the stinging I feel in my face and the burning I feel thick over my eyes
When I can’t make sense of you or the air it feels like you’ve left as new breath in my lungs
At least I can seek comfort in knowing that you resemble the chill of a season

Your body is a constant motion that reminds me of the tides
and I thank god for that because I can feel you pulling me in,
stuck in your undertow

I am the words that slip from the page
and I exist in the air, exist in the space that holds all other objects into shapes
And I am the color blue when the sky can no longer hold the weight of your gaze
You are the color blue
When the sensation of existence is only the vibration of thought

I am exhausted
and all my thoughts sound the same
I want to be unconscious
and not even dream
I just want it to be quiet in my mind
if only for a single hour
My mind is only ever running in circles
and I try to rake up all the thoughts that are
Sharp and Loud far into the back of my mind
and wait for them to be something
Less,
less than a murmur
To pen out and address the stress of my thoughts makes me
afraid
that they may come to life,
spring from the page and topple me to the ground

Stay true to the sky and I’ll love you forever
Even though I am the ocean and I can only see you upside down
I trust life goes on

I trust you’d catch me
had I let loose my grip on the world
and we could become the multi shades of blue
and have each of us fade into the other

For the sake of time
just undress your eyes and tell me a secret
Tell what you’re about and exchange
societal mediocrity for sincerity
Because I’m afraid you sometimes let lies and stupidity cling to your clothing
and I think you should shed
Like snow from the sky
and let me see some bones
some proof that you exist
if only in the conventional sense
if only in the measurable sense
Take a step back and let me look at you against a soft and powder blue back drop
Because I like the view
Because you are an image of actuality
and I don’t have to touch you to know that you’re real
I don’t have to trace the lines on your hands
to be taught that they not only circle around your wrists
but also across your face
and they tell a story
One I’m afraid will be misinterpreted, neglected
I’m afraid it will only be read as the surface of the skin
I want to dissect the look of concern from your face
Because I can only offer you a lack of words
for all I want is the sight of you
the sight and simple notion of your existence
which is a subtle scream smothered by the slap of the wind at our ears
and I’m not entirely sure if it was ever there at all
So I’ll ask you to scream it again and louder
until the sound rubs the slippery slide of your trachea
raw and ******
And I’ll ask you to scream it again and louder until the vocals
slip past my sense and sink into my mind
where I can only hope for them to subside as a memory of an explosion
and wait for them to bloom again in the spring
tangled twine of the mind
impossible for me to forget you

I told you it was too cold to swim that night
but I stripped down to my underwear and followed you into the water anyway

The water was warmer than the air
and in the dark it held a new texture on my skin
I don’t remember feeling cold
and I don’t remember feeling wet
it was just the sensation of being surrounded by the water
like I was part of it
I’ll never forget how genuinely happy I felt
A feeling I thought was meant to be saved
only for the most important of moments
I felt it in my whole body and all the time now

At the farthest end of the pool I turned to face you
and clung to the side of the pool
You swam right to me
and you felt so close
We hadn’t said anything for awhile
and I could feel you looking at me wholly

I’ll never forget your smile
and how it could take up your whole face
how you would exhale deeply
and raise your eyebrows up at me

I’ll never forget how you let me see you cry
and how your eyes could become bigger and greener
than ever before when you did.

Later, after you drove me home
you promised you wouldn’t forget me
and all I could do
was try my hardest to believe you

You don’t know the color of the sky like you say you do
Looking out at the mountains you tell me
We are the ocean
And someday soon
We will fade and despite it
The sky will continue to exist

I think you’re wrong
And after you’ve given so much superiority to the sky
I find that I’d much rather be the ocean

Despite the trivial concept of the color blue
I beg to disagree with its insignificance

Because I’d much rather be a flood of circles,
round and dynamic with life
Than out live a notion of pure existence

I’d much rather be the sea than see your face while it mocks my mortality
I’d much rather be your laughter than sit within your mind
Where you dwell and mock my morality

I woke up screaming
a blanket of blood thick and heavy on my skin.
I was met by a circle of strangers each with an attentive gaze on me full of urgency and purpose,
My world was bright
and it held an overwhelming lack of color
I was malleable to these people
my body like clay
was completely at their disposal
They would mold me into the right shape so I could be like one of them

While in the womb my lungs only knew fluids
then after I was born
I broke through the veil of elements and air was invited into my body
Air which filled me wholly and inflated my lungs like balloons
Air made my body rhythmic and helped my chest learn to keep time
it helped me define the first separation from one reality into the next

She told me there are hallelujahs in my blood
She sees what I can’t know
She says she can read me like a book but there’s always more pages to read
more blood to be bleed
always more line to find in between
so tell me baby, what do you prescribe?
what other secrets does my blood hide?
does hell travel through my veins as well?
am I heaven or am I hell?
Tell me about the answers I can’t reach
because your obvious expertise
is qualification enough to sort through my organs
and ration out conclusions
Layout my truths, my lies, an obvious declaration in your eyes
I am yours to tear apart,
I am a discovery you’ll take to heart

I love to watch your eyes
change color.
And I love to watch your face
change shape.
When I trace your lips with my fingertips and tell you
I think you’re like art
your smile proves me right.
Because when I tilt my head up to look at you
you make me feel like
I’m looking on at a scene that could hold itself in time.

I’d like to hang upside down
so that my tears run up my face and drip
from the tips of my hair
Form puddles beneath my suspended mind
and ripple outward with each coming scream

When my head gets heavy
with the poorly circulated blood
and bricks of thought
I will shake my mind wild
in hope that it will be flung from my eyes
and will splatter far across the ground

I’d like to be squeezed
closed tight in a suspension that promises contradiction

I reach my arms up
when I know the sky won’t hold
to feel its scream

it’s wrapped around the earth so tight
and it bleeds
it breaks down into piece by piece
and it leaks

it is cold, the sky is so cold and
will fill my cupped hands
will tangle in my long outgrown hair
will stay clung to my body
will weigh me down

My eyes are able to contort my thoughts in the darkness in such a way that behind my lids
puzzle pieces of scenarios are produced
They try to fit together
They become abrasive
adding friction to the texture of my mind

When I lift my body up abruptly from these makeshift thoughts
it feels like my lungs are flooded with double edged images
It’s like I’m resurfacing,
breaking through the thin veil between the elements of reality

And I sit up fast to find myself alone in the dark
gasping for air
I can prop myself up before I can feel myself
in the sleeve of my body
It makes me believe my movements are independent from my thoughts
My body’s mechanics are able to pull me away from what had trapped me behind my eyes

Sometimes my mind feels like it’s screaming
Just making too much noise and never
actually saying anything
I wish my mind were like the sky
Outstretched and blue
A fabric spread thin,
out across everything
Because then my thoughts could be like clouds,
no longer sharp or immobile
and my ideas could be like stars
Then maybe for once they could be seen through the dark

Comb out your hair
because the twine and the tangle
grows like vines over your gaze out.
To become unloose from the self inflicted entanglement
is the definition of your ambition.