You ate my body like a commodity,
until I was nothing but skin and bones,
and then you used my bones as
materials further still.

Until I was nothing but empty
skin that you squeezed every
drop from—until there was
nothing left for you to take.

You see the world through dollar signs,
making every red flag shine green—
until you're blind to the way I bleed.

You can't miss what you never had—
So instead I yearn,
until by the heart's design
it pumps out tears and poisons my blood
stream.

Until the world stops turning,
I am a ghost left to linger
at all of my haunts.

She tried to grab my hand
to pull me away,
but my skin was so see-through
her fingers grasped air.

Life is divided into lights and darks,
but I lost my shadow—
a pile of memories left to settle
is all that remains.

She tried to lay me to rest,
but my bones are so weary
they crumble to dust,
slipping through her memory.

Until the sun stops rising,
I am a specter, left to
wander on empty plains.

You tell me it's better to quit while we're ahead,
but I'll keep going until you hate me to spend more time with you.

Some nights I wish I had a warm
body to hold,
or a soft voice that would whisper
words like lullabies to me.

Some nights, I yearn for soft fingers
lingering on my face,
or someone who won't mind that my touch is dry,
and my hands are the desert.

Some nights time is malleable and
endless without an anchor to pull me
back to Earth.

Some nights I want someone to
lay by my side so that even when
sleep is nowhere to be found,
at least loneliness isn't my sole companion.

Summer clings to her skin and
drips from her lips like a lovesong.

Each freckle that dusts her
face is a blessing from the
blazing sun.

Her hair falls down her back
in strawberry colored waves, each
gentle curl enticingly lovely.

She is beautiful as her skin grows
golden after every lick of heat—
blossoming in the Summer sun.

She grows steady and strong
like an oak tree, living every day
like she'll never have it again.

Sometimes, the darkness is not my friend,
but pins me to my bed with heavy hands.

We become uneasy companions
on a stormy sea—
the rest of the world sailing
smoothly on dreams.

Something about the night revels
in picking through my mind like a
filing cabinet—no method to the madness.

Sometimes I ask,
"Why will you not let me go?"

Sometimes the night answers:
"Because these hours are not your own to control."

On days where your bones are heavy
and your hands stay cold,

On days where your brain is overcrowded static
and your heart is sand and dust,

Remember that there is a warm bed
to welcome you home,
and music to soothe the unplaceable ache.

The moon leaves the landscape
bleached bone-pale, the trees
on the horizon, an interlocking skeleton.

You stand, a ghostly figure with
glass bones and paper skin, face
turned up to the moonlight.

A breeze that whispers of the dawn
blows right through you but elicits
shivers on my skin.

The night is quiet by your command⁠—
when I ask if you are real your
eyes contain oceans, and your voice is
birdsong.

It's funny to think
that I spent so much
time crying over you.

Until the embers faded—
suffocated slowly from
lack of air instead of
stomped out as I told
you.

We sit at either end
of ashes now when you
have the time.

While I wait,
sometimes I swear I
can see my reflection
in them, showing
me a person that I
barely remember being.

They say the phoenix is reborn
from ash and fire, but I shed my plumage completely.

Her whisper is the Lucifer,
because when she calls I  must answer.

(Holding on is too hard to bear
when her voice feels like satin on my skin.)

I go to her,
because I am only human—
but she is something more.

It’s on nights like these I know you still live on my shelves.
These words hurt to write because they don’t fit into the story that I want to have, in which I’m over you and am changing into someone better than before.

Nights like these remind me that I still love you,
that I still try and push my way towards you.
Try to push into your heart, and into your hands.

These nights remind me that I still want to hold you,
that I still want to lose my voice playing Mario Kart and fall asleep next to you.

I destroyed all I have of you,
and you’re sticking around, like the glue of stickers on the windows of a car.
Thinking of you on these nights makes my throat close and my heart hurt,
it makes my hands reluctant to write these words. I don’t want to look back in the morning and see proof of my weakness compared to you.

I think I once called you a flower, pushing through the crust of the Earth to bloom.
I still see this flower behind closed eyes when I dream, as much as I don’t want to.

The last thing I want to do is push you away,
as much as it’s the only thing I want, to keep you from stomping on me even further.
How do I keep you close to me with all the distance between us?

Do you know what you’re doing to me still?
Every laugh and smile is like salt in the wound, but it’s like I’m starving for your company.

I hate nights like these
because I remember the way your hands shook that day, but also the way you didn’t cry.

I hate nights like these
because you push my mind in so many different directions that I can’t recognize myself in the mirror in the morning.

Most of all, nights like these remind me that you aren’t feeling this.
This heaviness that comes in the dark, inescapable.
I can't see it in your eyes.

Fancy words can't disguise it,
love is *******.

A lie to hide behind
that leaves the world covered in ashes.

I hope one of us chokes,
so you know what pain I'm in,
so I know yours.

Do I know you?
I loved you, held you
but you were a stranger in the end.

The fairytales were wrong,
and I was an idiot,
to believe that you could be mine,
without the rest of the world wanting in.

Today I said, "I love you, and I want you to be happy."
She hugged me, and I could feel her hands shaking on my back,
and then she walked away.

I wonder if she could hear my heart break.
Not in two, but into a thousand little pieces,
for every time I fell in love with her.

Something that I’ve learned for sure,
you don’t need to see me like you said you used to.
I read the words you wrote, and wonder what has been changing?

How much have we both been changing?
I feel static compared to you,
a constant shifting kaleidoscope.

More and more of your colors are coming out,
twinkling and sparking in the light of the mid-morning sun, and for the first time I’m seeing it from the outside.

You’re too sincere to hurt anyone on purpose,
and that’s how I know, because I know you.

Sometimes I feel more like your friend,
and there’s a claw that picks at my heart,
armed with acid that shuts down my lungs.

You’re beautiful.
An unequivocal fact, a truth.
The way you make everyone around you feel
special, important,
loved.
Being on the outside burns,
but seeing you bloom is enough to make me swallow my tongue.

I don’t know if I can be your friend.
If you want me to be, I’ll do it,
but you mean so much more than I can ever communicate.

Recently,
I’m the one that needs you.

I look for you everywhere I go,
wait at corners in case I can run into you,
watch you leave with a bruised spirit.

How do you do it?
How do you have me so wrapped around your fingers that I can’t breathe?
How do I show you what you’re doing to me?

I know that if things change,
I’m going to break whatever balance we have,
like I always knew I would.

We told each other all that time ago
that we want to see each other in our futures.
Do I fit into yours?

You’re growing, growing up,
outgrowing me, I can’t catch up to you,
no matter how hard I’m trying.

I think you’d be surprised how reckless and stiff it’s making me,
you’ve always been part of my impulse control,
always cared whether or not I’m doing okay.

How are you?
I can’t ask you that really,
I just sit and smile,
take in you and your coffee smile, morning tired eyes.

It might be just me, but I must know.
When my fingers touch your skin my mind is calm,
my day glows a little brighter.

When you leave,
I can’t help but smile and wish you were staying.
The smile on your face always stuns me into silence.

Some days, we don’t even talk,
which feels so foreign. Seeing you makes do then,
unravels the knot that twists in my chest,
tension pulling taut beneath my skin.

We used to be side by side,
but now you’re sliding out of my reach,
and I’m left with an extended hand, alone.

Some days, I worry.
Wake up at three in the morning in tears,
from dreams of the future,
where you aren’t there.

Maybe it makes me selfish,
to want to be with you all of the time.
To see every laugh, see the way your eyes sparkle when you’re happy.
To see the way you gesture so wildly when you talk.

Spending time with you feels like a gift,
or a drug.
I want more and more,
but a little is enough,
it’s got to be enough.

In time,
maybe I’ll handle it better,
not think about you all the time, in everything I do.

Somedays, I watch you go,
and wonder if you’re gone for good,
that I’ll never stand by your side again.

Somedays, I love you.
For some reason, everyday is about you.

Somedays I know,
that I’m losing whatever I used to be for you

When you see my face, is my name running through your head on loop, on loop, on loop, on loop?

Your shining eyes and pretty little smile press the words I want to say into my skin and down my throat.

You've taken my light and strained it; I'm turning into shadows, my lungs burn with smoke from the fire in my brain.

When you hear my voice, do you feel the turmoil that I do? I want to be close to you, but you'll burn me for standing too close to the fire.

Shadows, you are my sun no longer. Satellite, alien, obstruction in the sky. How can I escape you when all I want to do is hold you close to me, and hear your heartbeat?

Come on my lady,
take my hand and hold it tightly.
Tonight it's you and I in the quiet night,
the only witness the sky above our heads.

Let's dance under the stars,
don't worry I'll catch you if you fall.
We don't need music, can't you feel the rhythm between us?

The way my pulse pounds,
the hammering of your heartbeat,
in harmony with the humming of the wind,
the crickets percussion.

It's you and I, let's enjoy our time together,
away from the rest of the restless world.
You give my heart wings, I'm so light one more word, and I'll fly.

Indulge me this once,
dancing in the dark,
where your loveliness shines.

When I’m done with you, all you’ll be is a shell of who you were,
so it would be better for both you and me if you didn’t come close.
If you stayed away from my prying words that hide knives between syllables,
in lingering touches that break your foundations.

When I’ve broken you all I can,
destroying that special sadness you keep behind walls as dark as trust, because you know I’m there on the other side, what’s left is sharper than glass.

Alone in the street, just you no me,
calling out into the night,
smell the rain on your skin.
Let it soak your hair and try to fix you as the water runs red to the gutter.

In a perfect world, there is no I’ll be better,
in a perfect world, we never looked each other’s way.

You’ll never be the same after me,
I’ll never be the same after you,
you ruined me, but I broke you.

I froze you the way only fire can, covering you in scars head to toe,
your burning winter worse because I’m so bad with the cold.

When you’re moving on with words that wrap you up like a blanket in the dark,
that stop the flow of blood where your heart is supposed to be,
will you let me go, and destroy all of our pretty things?

This is a two-way street, even when you’re empty, with a sandpaper soul,
all of our oasis, the moon, and the universe that we made together,
can you let them go?

When you think back,
will you always remember me?
Will the waves still break at the thought of my name?

In a different life, let’s never say hello,
let me drown in the thick red of my ocean alone