Stickers and wires riddle your chest
Complicatedly tethering you to your room,
Where you watch the morning news in socks,
Pairs of socks and blankets
That can’t stop the coldness of the tile
From slipping through your skin,
Goosebumps, the cold grabs hold of your leg
And pulls it out from under you.
Cold, when the needle enters your skin,
Even colder, waiting for someone,
Clean sheets but not like home
Fresh pressed and sanitized,
Tube up your nose, down your throat,
A get well soon card watches.

I hate you, weak in the way that you
Smile at the world, then crawl through
Love to plant poison in its heart.
So weak, what happened to you?
And do you cry out at night alone,
Empty and decaying in the grave you dug?
You make me sick, and I hope so.
But at least I am not you.

sleeping soundly, but still dreaming
our paths meet across the room
lights guide shaky hands, almost seeming
to bring me to your skin, something in bloom,
so sweet, but couldn't stop the sun's rising glow
you're perfect, yet i won't assume,
to adore you, i can dream, but never know
when i wake up can we resume?

not now, don’t leave a trace
cursed tears running down my face
i hate it so much, to start to cry
wish i could figure out why
cleanse my eyes and reset my brain
let my thoughts run down the drain
find memories of me in my backyard
when life didn’t seem hard
anything but here right now
pray to disappear somehow
hiding, breathing, peer through my hair
try and find a bathroom somewhere

butterflies head north
flutter up your throat, your eyes
see him different

She’s got a cheap cigarette
she uses to bury us all in smoke.
It hangs off her lips
and wobbles when she talks.
She’s cracked open a new book,
another ****** romance.

It’s always romance,
she says, taking a drag from her cigarette.
It’s in everything, in every **** book.
Each word she speaks is followed by a puff of smoke,
small clouds that form as she talks
and roll off of the curve of her lips,

the very same lips
that told me romance
is for suckers, told me talks
of love are talks of nothing rolled into a cigarette
she’d never smoke.
She buries her nose in her book

once more, leaving me to stare at the book
cover and nervously gnaw at my lips.
The empty space between us is full of tension and smoke
and somehow, a stubborn romance
that hangs in the air like a half hit cigarette
hangs on the edge of an ashtray. She talks

to me, around me, and about me, but our talks
never include that tension, though I could write a book
full of the way she glances past her cigarette
at me, how her inviting lips
beg me to foolishly romance
her by hurling apprehensive smiles through her wall of smoke.

The tiny wisps of smoke
that swirl around her dance as she talks
about this dime-store romance
novel she happened to pick up, a devastating book
about a man who spent his life with his lips
sewed shut. She finally puts out her cigarette.

The smoke from her cigarette peters out and silence settles over the two of us.
I move my lips and no sound comes out. When she finally talks
again, I cross my fingers in hopes of being the next romance book she wants to discuss.

How deep were we in?
Restrained by chains that burn our skin
Car headlights, a hush falls over
Shines through the window, time feels slower
I hope he knows that we care
He grabbed him, dragged him by his hair
Cry, scream, or maybe not
Could have done anything, but we couldn't make him stop