by definition,
lust is
extreme ****** desire for someone

by nature,
lust is
uncontrollable...
I'm attracted to my thirty-seven year old male teacher
and my eighteen year old male coworker
and the quirky girl who sits behind me in history,
what?

by religion,
lust is
a sin, punishable by Hell,
whatever that is.

lust is unavoidable,
but socially unacceptable to act upon.

adrenaline and alcohol coursing through my veins,
eyes lowered, breathing slowed,
staring at the stage.
fueled by self confidence, or lack thereof,
hands shaking, knees are weak,
tonight I'm in love.
you're here with her but I can't fight it,
lonely girl, attention *****,
habit I can't quit.
kissing her with your hands on me,
bodies sweaty, subtle touching,
risking that she'll see.

sext: "want me to come over? I have blunts!"
why not, why not have over a guy who I met 4 days ago?
beautiful eyes, expensive car, ****

just the thought of my heart fluttering a thousand miles a minute,
the effects of the drug indistinguishable from my reaction to physical contact,
was enough for me to open my door (and my legs) to this boy

he was an okay kisser.
he (attempted) to pleasure me before himself.
he was confused as to why I didn't **** him.
he left right after he finished.
he hasn't texted me since.

we didn't even get high.

I saw galaxies in your eyes
and you left stardust in your footprints
but I keep it in a jar on the shelf above my bed
you're not here anymore but you are
and the voices in my head won't shut up
shut up
shut up
sometimes they sound like you
and they whisper sweet things like good morning and you're pretty
but sometimes they are your mother screaming
screaming
screaming
I can't erase the scars on my skin
maybe I wouldn't have cut my arms up if I didn't shake all the time
sometimes I am numb and empty but seeing blood run down my wrist reminds me that I'm full of pretty colors
other times I feel like I am housing the universe and I  am too small to contain it
there's only one way out and you always said it was bad for me
but it's good for me I swear,
just like the drugs I force down my throat to forget ******
******
******
I can't think or form sentences right now
I am tired and I am sick
in my head
there are monsters in my head and I have not stopped to think
just typing like a machine
I am a robot to my own mind, just repeating
repeating
repeating
sequences like math but it's not numbers
it's swallowing pills or slicing my body into pretty geometric patterns
caffeine is a drug and I am awake even though I feel dead
last night I cried for three hours straight
and I was terrified of not knowing what I was capable of
suicide is not pretty
you can't romanticize it with pictures of ****** wrists and hand guns next to a bouquet of daisies
even though sometimes that's what it looks like in my head.

I wish I could put my tongue
on exactly what I want
as much as I put it against yours.
I wish I could hold your heart
in my hands
instead of leaving mine in a ****** pile
in yours.
I wish I was addicted to my heartbeat
after three (or four) **** rips
instead of my heartbeat
when I'm dressing to see you.
I wish I knew my mother
as well as I got to know yours
when we sat side by side
waiting for you to wake up
after swallowing a bottle of aspirin.
I wish I cut up your letters
instead of my own arms
but I can't think of any other way
to get you out of my skin.
I wish I loved myself
as much as I love you
but I wasn't lying when I said
you are the better part of me.

...my seventeenth drink in two hours
when my head went from resting peacefully in your lap
to hung over the toilet seat I somehow managed to get to in time
vomiting self-hatred and cheap *****
that I realized I should have eaten something that day.

...you asked about the sixty-two marks on my arm
that I purposely (drunkenly) left in plain sight,
unconsciously hoping someone would ask if I was okay,
that I realized you would be anything to me
but nothing hits harder than the fact that
despite "your understanding of how I'm feeling"
I still wanted to die of 200% alcohol in my bloodstream.

...we were lying on the cold, hardwood floor
with your arm under my head and your lips pressed to my neck
(although I'm not sure if that actually happened)
that I realized I could be happy even at my lowest.

...we woke up the next morning,
next to each other but not touching,
that I realized the night before was a one time thing
and even though you saw me at my worst,
all you really know is my first name
and that I have hundreds of scars on my left inner arm and both my hips,

but you didn't say a word to me all morning.

calculate the derivative
of meaningless numbers and variables strewn together
somehow making up easier or harder variations of the same thing.
why do I give a **** about the derivative of the square root of sinx+1?
nonetheless it's easy, it's the chain rule twice.
at least calculus has laws and patterns to follow;
you weren't that simple.
I stayed up countless nights trying to extract some formula to count the stars I saw in your eyes,
at least until I learned that the stars in our sky died billions of light years ago.
your kisses began tasting like stardust you coughed up from the dying universe in your lungs but now you're coughing up cigarette smoke and binge drinking until you're on the wait-list for a new liver.
I guess it's kind of ironic that I only call you when I'm wasted off of cheap ***** or high as ******* some random's **** probably laced with god knows what.
fun new drinking game: take a shot every time you call me a hypocrite;
I guess I just care a little more about you than I do about myself.

Articulation;
The act of grasping a fleeting idea
and fitting it to symbols and sounds
Of which can be comprehended
par les autres.
Mais et si je commence parler dans une langue
que vous ne savez pas?
Well, you're out of luck, I suppose.
Then, my ideas, of which are still transformed into the same alphabet,
are no longer of any meaning to you.
Ça c'est le problème avec l'amérique, par exemple--
nous sommes trop occupés avec nous-mêmes.
Il y a trop des idées que nous ne saurons jamais
simplement parce que nous parle seule l'anglais.
But sometimes, a language barrier is a good thing--
I can't understand the crude remarks from the kitchen staff at work.

blasting A Day to Remember loud enough for the neighbors to hear,
she closes her eyes which burn like hell solely from a lack of sleep
(4 caffeine pills cannot replace 6 hours lying awake).
replaying in her mind is every ****** up conversation about her "problems",
her mom says "talk to me" but she doesn't know how to respond...
how can she confess to the woman who gave her life her longing for an end?
she doesn't say anything but her mind is a ******* mess,
thoughts of cutting,
thoughts of him,
thoughts of nothing.
she is going insane but at the same time she is numb.

you planted flowers in my rib cage but they died when you left,
now my lungs are filled with dust and smoke and I can't ******* breathe.
you made butterflies grow in my stomach but they flew out of my mouth as sweet nothings and now I have nothing else to say.
sometimes you leave drunk voice mails saying you miss me and your words burn the back of my throat but ***** still burns worse.
you said I had the prettiest blue eyes you had ever seen, I guess you met someone prettier because my eyes are sunken and grey now.
you poisoned my blood with your *******, I guess warning labels weren't made for this kind of drug (not that I would have stayed away anyway).
I've replaced the dark purple love bites you left on my neck with razor sharp kisses across my wrist,
I'm doing okay now.

you are a mirror,
already shattered and left with razor sharp edges,
but made of the same pieces as before
you were dropped.
alcohol and meaningless *** are only a temporary glue
and five months time have worn it thin.
resist your predisposition to push everyone away
before hearing the way her voice shakes,
begging you to stay until tomorrow,
as you drown yourself in self destruction.
let the oceans of her eyes swallow the pills for you,
and her own scarred skin fend against the knives you pull out of your back.
you have rebuilt the broken glass walls of your mind
with your one-night-stand's skin-tight leather pants,
strong enough to defend against the words that slip out of her mouth
but not pictures of her bare skin.
use your hands to make something tangible,
like a hand-written letter to your mother
or a mixtape for the sweet girl you shared a cab with,
instead of giving yourself bruises and four second *******.
but *******,
you never once asked how I was doing.

it's funny how easily words flow through the rivers in my brain
when I write about killing myself or missing your teeth on my neck,
but as soon as I have to write an essay on a quote by Ben Franklin about his position on global affairs,
a drought occurs in my mind and I draw a blank.
it's not that I'm not smart enough;
I can't help that I am incapable of forming seamless sentences unless I'm hyped on caffeine at 3 in the morning when the rest of my world is asleep.
but here I am,
writing about a paper I can't write right now because it's only 6 pm and I'm still distracted by the light cast on my bedroom floor.

you are not the smell before rain, you are a ******* hurricane. you tore through every ******* wall I put up and now I'm left with broken pieces of your old coffee mug and ripped receipts with ****** I love you's written drunkenly on the back. my hands are numb but my mind is as sharp as the razor blade that kisses my wrist and I'm cutting up my arms trying to cover up the slashes you left on the inside of my collapsing rib cage but nothing pierces through me the way your ice blue eyes did when I woke up next to you. my head is spinning from brandy and coke and your voice is ringing in my ears and my eyes are burning but I haven't slept in two weeks. I started binge drinking tea instead of liquor and I guess that's a good thing although I'm just poisoning my heart with caffeine instead of my liver with alcohol. maybe I should start reading again but I'm only attracted to the beautiful things that are constantly destroying me.

smiling in my pictures
but I'm vomiting glitter
and killing butterflies;
not fatally, just enough to bandage.
self-destruction is not exclusive;
physically, maybe, but skipping meals
and writing on your wrists
will make your mother cry a hundred tears
for every picture of you with bloodshot eyes.
I'm okay, mom, please don't worry,
but knowing how much cheap perfume it takes to cover the smell of cigarettes is not something I wish I knew.

what is religion?
it is stories
of one or two or a hundred
"higher powers"
that do nothing other than
give "faith" in the name of "God"
but what good does God do?
if you have ***, you are going to hell.
if you drink alcohol, you are going to hell.
basically, if you find pleasure in anything,
you are going to hell.
but you sit in church every Sunday morning
and pray
to who?
I couldn't tell you.
how can you be sure that God is real?
how do you know you're not worshipping the devil?
not that the devil is real, either.
should he be capitalized to?
I suppose calling the devil He could be offensive,
not that He isn't present in everyone.
people tell stories all the time
of seeing God right before they crash their car
or coming back to life after being in a comatose state for five days.
everything is a story,
passed down from your mother's cousin's aunt to your mother to you to your children to their children and their children's friends,
altered, changed, ultimately completely different than what is was at the start.
but your mother said God is real so God is real, right?
maybe God isn't real, maybe people believe in the qualities of Him,
he could be present in all of us, I suppose, but then the devil is real, too.
I've not seen either,
but then again I've not seen electrons but I got an A in chemistry.

today I
drank seven cups of tea
slept for five hours in the middle of the day
wasted fifty-two dollars on shoes I (didn't) need
wrote six poems (all about you)
smoked eleven cigarettes
threw back four shots
and made three cuts on my rib cage.

I don't know what happiness is,
but I'm pretty **** sure this isn't anywhere close.

In the beginning it was shaking,
Butterflies so bad they all came up.
And first kisses.
And naivety.

The shaking never went away,
But soon it was all begging.
Come home.
I need you.
I miss you.

Then it was drunk phone calls while driving at night,
Love confessions.
No responses.

Now its fantasies.
And teasing.
And reminiscing about how the only reason we ever were
Were our self-destructive tendencies.
Bad habits.

But I’m better now,
And you are too, right?
I haven’t been able to write
Since I last drew blood from my body,
I guess that’s a little concerning.

I remember the taste of every beer,
until maybe number ten.
I remember the sweet, minty taste of your lips,
until you moved across the Atlantic.
I remember the way I shook when I was with you,
but thank God I don't remember the night I said I loved you.

you'd think after two and a half years of
3 am conversations about how we both wanted to **** ourselves and
sweet kisses where my dad said to keep hidden and
random, drunk you mean everything to me's that
your name wouldn't taste so bitter when
my mom asks how you're doing and
I tell her that you're fine and that
I don't miss you but
sometimes I still like to text you when I get high even though
you're always drunk.

I found myself on my bedroom floor,
dizzy from seven beers I stole from my dad,
thinking I could replace your memory with alcohol.
when I forgot my name before yours,
I tried emptying my veins,
but watching my blood run down the sink brought no closure.
my lips are cracked and my skin is rough;
your hands left burn marks where you touched me
and your kisses took every ounce of moisture from my mouth.
I know you're not the one I'm looking for
but I'm so cold and a fire is a fire;
I might be drunk right now but I'll still wake up
wanting to kiss you.

kisses from strangers don't taste as sweet as your *******,
but I'm so ******* hungry.
crimson paintings on my wrist don't rid my body of your touch,
but maybe in a few years I'll forget the burns you left on my skin.
replacing my blood with alcohol doesn't help me forget you,
but I might as well get drunk instead of seeing you in my dreams.
washing my sheets daily doesn't wash away the smell of your cologne,
but it's so familiar and I can't fall asleep without you surrounding me.
five cups of coffee don't wake me up as quickly as your hand on my thigh,
but hopefully soon I won't have to.

from the minute I met you, you seeped into my skin and dispersed through my veins. I couldn't resist your hands around my waist, breathing sweet nothings in my ear between slow kisses breaking the thin blood vessels of my neck, etching yourself beneath my skin. now your name is tattooed on my heart and you'd have to crack open each of my ribs to remove it but even that would hurt less than thoughts of you flooding my mind every ******* minute.

the ***** I drink much too often burns, yes, but not as much as your name does when I'm spitting it out like venom, blaming you for my own inconsistency.

the smoke that briefly fills my lungs leaves my head spinning and my heart beating a thousand miles an hour, but nothing can make me shake the way you did with your lips pressed to my neck.

the cuts left by rusted razor blades inevitably burn no matter where they're made, but nothing stings more than the tone in your voice when you say you wish you didn't love me.

the tears that stain my t-shirt have turned into tidal waves but instead I'm drowning in thoughts of you and I don't know how to tell you how I feel without telling you that I love you but I don't feel anything at all anymore.

she kisses her wrists with fresh razor blades,
leaving behind crimson valleys flooding with the universe.

he whips his shins with I'm not sure what,
leaving dark bruises that are much easier to explain than her cuts.

she cannot explain her reasoning,
the chills in her spine won't stop until she finds release.

he tries to make his father proud,
the voices in his head remind him of every time he's ****** up.

she cannot bear to be with someone as ****** up as herself,
but she is the only thing keeping him alive.

I'd rather see crimson on trees than running down my wrist.

I remember the first day you saw my scars,
you said the potential for completely unzipping the veins in your wrist was too risky and
I found that ironic as you spoke so often of craving an "accidental" fall from a four story building and
I started looking at dragging that blade across my skin as an act of bravery when it's really an act of cowardice and
you told me you understand, that you may not draw blood from your own skin but you leave dark bruises all over your legs and
I didn't realize how dangerous it was to get close to someone exactly like the reflection I see in the mirror.