You’re becoming ill
With thoughts of suicide
And gallons of red wine.
Your mind is full of desperate dreams
Of aliens and naked women.
Cloud your sanity with alcohol and drugs;
Drink a cocktail of desire.
Bite your fingernails until there is nothing left,
In the morning you won’t know why your hands are ******.
Shattered glasses and midnight strolls,
You are a creature of the night.
Are you losing yourself or
Are you losing your mind?

These times are changing,
And yet I feel the same.
Sickness wracks my body,
Drugs run through my veins.
I drink coffee at three in the morning
Because I can’t tell the sunlight from the dark.
I guess I should be getting home now,
But it seems I’ve forgotten where I parked.

I do not remember love. I do not remember the way his fingertips graced my skin. I do not remember the gentility of his lips on my cheek. I do not remember the light in his Atlantic eyes. I do not remember the butterflies hatching in my stomach when he said my name. I do not remember his arms wrapped tightly around me. I do not remember the way my hands quivered so violently against him. I do not remember the tears in my eyes that night. I do not remember love.

I hope my name tastes like ash and burnt coffee in your mouth
Whenever the opportunity arises that you must speak it.
I hope my memory singes the photographs of us in your mind.
I hope you threw my letters into a bonfire in a fit of rage,
Then extinguished it with your salty, bitter tears.
I hope the sound of my voice rushes through your dreams like a wildfire,
Wakes you up in a cold sweat, gasping
For my gentle fingertips against your cheeks.
I hope the arsonist living quietly inside you
Sets fire to your veins and arteries and capillaries
Whenever you see me pass on the street.
I hope we burn for eternity,
An endless flame destined for immortality.

I have not eaten in days, but I am not hungry. I stood knee-deep in the snow just to feel something. I didn’t feel anything. I wrapped my hands around the coffee *** to feel it burn. My palms reddened and blistered but felt nothing. I wrap my bones in sweaters but I do not feel warm, nor do I feel cold. I fell in love with a stranger on the train to see if my heart could break. It cannot.

It does not run through our veins;

We see it only in our wounds.

We think of love and we find it,

Vibrant and terrifying and beautiful. 



It seems as though we see love as simply that:

An open wound
;
Spilled blood
Exposed to another’s oxygen.