It was the monday-est
of mornings and
I left empty
but for five hours of sleep
and a bit of
momentum

and when I watched you
pick up a handful of
white-hot coals from the fire
  and hold them like
  soft wet
     petals
in your hands
I screamed and
begged for you to drop them
because I didn't
  couldn't under
     stand
that you were only trying
     to burn
  the sickness out
from the gravel in your   gut

and I didn't
  couldn't under
     stand
how when you woke
your hands were white and clean
  as if straight from the
  womb
because when I
coaxed
the fire to grow
my finger brushed
a white-hot coal
and (where they kissed) was
raw and red for weeks

but now I do
  can under
     stand
that the gravel in your   gut
made you immune

while the
  soft wet
  petals
in mine made me fragile
as if straight from the
  womb

and something tells me
I won't be building a fire
  with you again
anytime soon

my body is still warm in the
places where you pressed
  against me as you
****** out from my bones
any ounce of apathy
I might have had left
  and my guts flutter
violently like a moth trapped in a glass box
  and I can't wait
to never have to see you again
because I could love someone who is
seven times better than you
        but right now
    my waist can't stop remembering
    the places your fingers sometimes liked to rest

I suspended my disbelief for you
but you forgot me somewhere
   like a flea
   behind the cigarettes and ******
   behind the pretty girls who tease
   behind the marrow in your knees
but some mornings, you wake up panicked
swollen with the sweat of something you might have once dreamed

I have these dreams that haunt me when I wake
and I'm not sure
if I believe in god but
I don't think I'm strong enough
to believe in nothing
  and survive it

I guess I should be
grateful that the pollen
doesn't make my throat itch
   like it does Naomi's
and it doesn't make my eyes itch
   like it does Naomi's
        but it does make me itch
to get out of this godforsaken place
            once-and-for-all

In my dreams I walk through
fields with needles where the grass
should be but when I wake the
crickets, birds, gossipy girls
whisper when I pass
and its so hard to stop listening
  (the streets swell yellow with the ***** of spring)

I wonder
if the lobster chested
  orange women
regret the youth they spent in the sun

My momma always warns me
to wear sunscreen so I won't look
like one of them and sometimes
   I do but sometimes
I have trouble
finding fear in the lobster chested
   orange version of me
              because the sun
              makes me happy
and if being orange skinned and
lobster chested means
I was happy once
would I really be ugly at all?

and when I see the
bruises on your throat
    soft and
          orange, it
makes me jealous
because your version of love is so easy
to come by but I
just can't swallow it.

I've heard some girls boast
about swallowing because I guess
it's supposed to make boys like you
   well
I can swallow too
I can swallow
   my fear and
I can swallow
   my insecurities and
I can hide them deep within me
    where
I don't have to show anybody
    and
I don't have to tell anybody

because the summer rays of sun
run circles round my eyes
and all I'll ever need is
to know that I survived

I loved you once.
but now you are a ghost
clutching in your
               tobacco hands
a violent whisper of the boy I once knew and I
  wish
  that you could see you
  the way I do
but I also wish
  that I could see you
  the way you do
so maybe
together we wouldn't
notice the distance between you
and solid ground

you say
that people change
but I think that maybe it's just
the spaces between people that change
       and I'm left alone
       counting the miles
   between your hands and mine
   [which you once held so severely]

You make me hurt inside.
This kind of hurt that steals my breath and upsets my stomach.
This hurt is so big that I often wonder how it fits inside my body. Maybe that’s why it hurts so much, because it’s too much, because it’s tearing out of my guts.
I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you hate I hate you hate hate hate hate hate hate.
I want to not know you, I want to forget you, I want to never hear of or even think of your existence again as long as I breathe.
It comes in massive explosions, this hurt.
A landmine in my body, it goes off when you touch my thoughts.
Twisting, searing, high-pitched hurt.
I want to be left alone.
Please please please please please please
Just leave me alone.

*******
ribs piercing through my porcelain flesh
black hole stomach, intestines empty
like your words
talking to bugs on my ceiling
they tell me to throw it all up
i know you are lying
lie to me harder, darling
food tastes more like disease
and i like it
i like it
i crave for it
give me your vacant eyes
cradle me in your contagious skin
break my bones, cracking with pleasure
but what they don’t know
is that the bags under my eyes are designer
I know everything you don’t want me to
It’s now or never, baby
I figured out you’re a liar
why don’t you tell me how it is
burning fire melting the skin off my face
just like that time he asked me if i liked it
and i said yes
so he sliced open my chest
and poured salt water in the wounds
oh how i liked it