Don't kiss me.
My lips are rough-- pure scar tissue.
Torn,
from coughing up self-truths,
regrets, sobs, misunderstanding
and formal apologies--
I choke.
Gasp
   retch
      retch
         retch
They are always a lovely shade of red
swollen, bee-stung, sometimes bleeding,
I blot the stains,
but their shadowy ghosts remain,
haunting aches, and throbs.

Don't meet my eyes.
They are wells
one might fall into and break a leg.
They will take him out like a dying horse
and shoot him behind the barn
and bury him,
in the dank soil.
And I will come later, sorry, and put dying roses
in his dead hands.
But what for?
Company?
The dead are happy,
only misery wants company.

Don't reach for my hands.
I will hold it fast, at first,
soft anchor, and the fingers will hook into my skin,
but I, in uncertainty,
put my claws in
and then retract them, drawing blood
I never wanted on my hands.
I should have thought of this before.
I am sorry I did not.

Do not fall in love with me.

I was always taught not to feel so bad
that bad things happen to bad people too
I learned not to feel sorry for myself
because everyone else already did
I realized everyone hurts, everyone feels the pain
not everyone suffers
This is how I learned to feel
everything
loudly
in my finger tips
and my toes
the ends of my hair
the tip of my nose
I feel everything as if it were a massive earthquake
even though it was just a paper cut
I can't tell if this is a blessing or a curse

I am to see to it that I never find you,
dear my stranger.
Because if what Steven Chbosky said was
indeed true,
"We accept the love we think we deserve."
Then, I sure do not believe I deserve you.

Things fall apart.
my mother will be the first to go.
Stretched between school, a stubborn husband,
distance, and a daughter she believes is dying,
and the ever present thought
that she will never be good enough.
Taught as drum leather, she shudders,
Wracked and rent by memories of lost children
and protruding ribs.
I awoke to her crying in the next room this morning.
She greeted me with feigned happiness, but
red eyes stared truthfully back.
"I'm okay," she murmured.
"*******," I said softly.
She clung to me.
I felt the burden shift on her shoulders.
crushing her,
her over sized heart beat to pulp,
it's ****** remnants clinging to her dripping sleeve.
The people she tried to hold together,
slipping through her fingers
like sand-- as her brittle bones break.
Things fall apart.
And I wish I knew how
to put them together again.