"I love you, a lot. Don't break my heart, please. It ***** when people do that to you. I did it to someone else to be with you so please don't do it to me because that'd ****, a lot, because I love you."

And then she was a chasm,
A cavity of weakness;
Void of throat shredding screams,
Drowning in mind mincing whispers.
She is now hollow of all
But a single reverberating beat
Clawing at the Heaven she yearns for.

But she is now a chasm,
A cavity of sorrow;
She found the space behind her ears
Home to hundred-legged creatures;
Her mouth's roof now scarred
From the family of nesting bats;
The glow worms that once illuminated her dark eyes
Sleep.

That is all she will ever be:
A Chasm.
Her bones broke when she joined the mountain side.
Muscles turned to moss, skin to crumbling stone.
Her lashes are now the stalagmites and stalactites
And although she did not open her eyes to this,
She is no neophyte to the mountain's arms.
She simply allows herself to forget for a time.

You only listen to clouds once they’ve rumbled,
And once they strike you wonder
How you could’ve possibly missed the warnings.
Lightning strikes so fast, it takes everyone aback,
But didn’t you see them shift?
Two dark bodies slamming into each other:
Colliding with rage and silent fear,
Conducting something sporadic and deadly,
Only to leave nothing but an echo and a reminiscing glow in the dark sky.
Sometimes it starts a fire, or takes a life,
But I love to watch it dance across the sky:
I shouldn’t.
Something so tragic and deadly should not fill me with awe,
Shouldn’t make me study and wonder --
Should make me cower and weep and mourn.
Lighting strikes so fast, it takes everyone aback.
It is the action to the voice the clouds whisper at night,
It is the last cry of rage or loneliness or fear,
It is sudden, but not without warning or precursor
You just have to be aware enough:
Watch as they dance.
See them cry and shake,
Listen to the rumble of their voice,
Feel the electricity dancing on the soft hairs of your arms,
Smell the damp city sidewalks,
Taste the copper on their tongue,
Watch as they dance across the sky:
Lightning struck so fast, it took everyone aback.

I want to mark my skin
like the ever-stained hem of the sleeves
that lick my knuckles like the sea foam
of a southern beach.

I want each pore to be filled
with the same heaviness that each streak
of watered-down mascara holds
as it lingers on the ends of my worn-out shirt sleeves.

Every line must mirror the soul
trapped in the blackened rivers
that forever run parallel to each other.

The curves crafted by the needle
will sway with same helium
he fills my chest with;

the crosses and dots will pack
the kisses he planted tenderly on my lips.

My first tattoo must be more than ink,
it must be heart.

The streets only glisten after rain,
Puddles catch the setting sun or
Soup the city's flickering street lights:
Suddenly the landscape is scattered with diamonds.

Sea shells only appear after a storm,
The waves kick and scream only
The best and the biggest ones to the surface:
Decorating the shore with rediscovered treasures.

A wolf only sings when it cries,
His echoes in the moonlit valley
Resinate from his shuddering chest:
Flying across the land ever so effortlessly.

Art is only lovely when it is broken,
Tear drop stains leave the best character --
Silenced screams in paint strokes entice:
Humans lie when they say they love a happy ending.

His touch was only gilded as a memory.

You called me golden
Like, perhaps, I could be a California river
And now I know that I am that swollen western stream
Scattered with pebbles of treasure
And you are the man that is sifting through me
Marveling at a beauty I cannot see:
Telling me how the sun made me sparkle,
Bragging about the curve of my body through the hills...
I know that I am that western vein because
I know I give more than I take,
I know I could never stick around for long...
I feel like you're like the others
Who held me in a colander and
Walked away with all I could give them.

As a poet I will always wonder
If my body ran under your fingertips like the Great Plains rolling under a tempest...
If the hollow echo of my breaking heart beating against your skin made you recoil in disgust?
Did the breath we share grow stale as it sat in my aching lungs?
Does the pale ghost of my lips make your neck shiver and tremble?
Where did your heart move when you held me; did it fill your stomach like it did mine?
Could the space where my hand used to lay thaw if you recollect?
Would your skin itch for the soft tracing of my fingertips again?
Do your ears strain for the sound of your name falling from my lips like leaves lifted by an autumn breeze?

As a person I will always wonder
If you even loved me.