when our metal collided,
forming a beautiful mess of flames and exchanged paint,
they dragged my unrecognizable hunk of meat,
fire still dancing on my skin,
to a blinding, sterilized building smelling of alcohol and copper
usually reserved for bullets in the chest and praying mothers.

they pricked my arms and legs and chest and everywhere in between.
never was there a moment
where cool palms were not smoothing down
the few strands of hair still attached to my scalp.

howls never failed to fill the night-
every night-
and my father joined the wolf pack
once they whispered
"we have some bad news."

their methods had failed to see my body perfect again.
but what they didn't know
is that instead of dripping recycled blood
down the tubes jammed in the holes decorating my skin,
they should have poured words
in to my running river veins.

boy, do I miss
you
everything about
you
when you kissed
me
I felt supernovas
exploding and
you
left bruises staining
my
neck that
I
never want
to heal.

moonlight reflects
and your skin glitters
like the stars.
you are translucent,
I see the icy chill of your veins-
a striking blue
against the ghostly surface.

an apparition,
contrasted against the dark ink
of the 2 am sky.

crisp pages
indented fom my pen's point,
whisper beneath the dry skin
of my cracked palm.
they flutter together,
butterfly wings,
and weave together a time
so melodious.

I am your canvas,
your lips are the brush.
decorate me with bruises
the colors of the universe.

I leak butterflies from the slits I'm my wrists
their wings flutter against my palms.

ice water clogs up my veins,
chilling me,
as most rises from my skin at dawn.
cerulean lips that match my eyes
spread over bared diamond teeth,
as I convulse and writhe on the steel table.
ribs crackle and split so suddenly
that not even a sharp gasp
can knive itself
past my throat.
organs fails and shrivel together,
abandoning me,
as gloved hands rip them out
from the incision along my belly.
my once silky tresses
fray and dry
before eventually falling out,
outlining my spasming figure.
grey brain matter numbs and
electrical impulses cease to a halt.
no more thoughts...
no more movements...
just a dead body with a beating heart.

I'm going to rip my insides open
and bleed out drugs and cigarette ash.
watch my face contort in to pain
without my ink and guts.

color me the hue of your cigarette ash;

slam broken beer bottles in to my palm

and wipe the blood on an old t-shirt. 

paint me pretty with ***** red lipstick
(stolen from my mother)

and stuff me in to china doll shells. 

you say “this change will be good for you”

i say “this is too fun to stop”

my father says “oh good god, what have you done?”

but darling, let’s not listen to anyone else,

and continue tattooing memories on our skin.”

my feet are not touching the floor
I am not gripping this pen
I am not me
I am not here

I float above my-body and everybody
I am loosely tethered to the girl
with the terribly dead eyes

do you have a scissor?
s
n
i
p
.
.
.

he wasn’t in love with me.
he just wanted a broken toy to fix.
— the truth

he crumbled me
in his callused palms
and just
threw
me
away.
— he made it seem so easy

she paints the sunrise
at 2 a.m.
when all is dark.
the colors
will forever remain
blazing in her memory.
— dreamer

I placed a piece of broken glass

on your ******, scabbed tongue

and made you swallow it.

broken pieces
shattered limbs
crushed glass heart
                                                                  frayed with cracks
                                                              and misunderstandings
                                                                  and the empty space
                                                             between my hollow ribs.

my words are a way to scrape my insides
and bleach them clean
without the foul odors.

so many thoughts
ricocheting off the sides of
my hard white skill

I let them out
not by speaking
(words stumble awkwardly and
all at once)

but by
w r i t i n g
(words finally flow and make sense)

the empty static
on the old boxy television
show the sorrow
of a million lost souls.

we keep them in cardboard boxes
old and frayed
with holes poked in the sides
so the gut wrenching wisps of
a flashback
can sneak out
and attack us
in the middle of the night

someone  c u t
off my crisp white wings
with a pair of
broken
rust covered
scissors

they ignored my desperate  p l e a s
and cries for help
and shouts of
"you are destined for hell!"

they left me  b l o o d y
with stinging tears dripping from swollen corneas
and scratch marks littering my and
and sunsets blooming on my thighs

I am
n o t h i n g
but the body
s t u m p s
on my back

my bones slowly rot
as if the second hand smoke
inhaled through my nostrils
stained my insides brown
and made them crumble.

I am nothing but a bag of unnecessary rocks slung over your shoulder. I am nothing but the wisps of smoke drifting from a cigarette, slowly fading as I travel in to the night. I am nothing but the cracks on a stranger's windshield after their hit and run- a flashback that will bring pain and guilt in to your shell. I am nothing but a hindrance, a fleeting thought, a horrid memory.

he pointed to my ribs
more importantly the space between them
and put his lips up to my ear
"you are n o t h i n g."

ink smudges stain
my callused
fingertips.

the reason why
I still open my eyes
is for the shock of the
               c o l o r s .

beautiful words weaved with the ugly
to form a
p o e m .

drowns everyone out
but I start breathing.

I think I finally found a person
worthy of my metaphors.

I will say he is sunshine after a long week of rain.

my heart tap dances in my chest
almost skipping
out on my tongue
to escape the cavernous cage
that is my ribs.

but I will miss
writing
in the afterlife.

it was the only way
I could slice open my veins
and bleed out my words
without making a mess.

poetry is the only escape from the nightmare we call living.

he crams pills down his throat
two of them
every night
just so "he won't feel the pain"
even though he wants to hurt himself

m o r e  t h a n  e v e r.

I wrote so many poems
for him
that impossibly
I was running out of metaphors.

your throat closes up, making you
c h o k e
on your own words, your own shouts for help
nothing but tight lips and squinted eyes
portray any amount of emotions on your face
you want to screech, to tell someone to
h e l p   m e   I   n e e d   y o u
but no words
no squeaks
no whispers
escape past your hard teeth
finally
all alone
you begin to sOB

poetry should be about

flowers

not about

the tears that never stop.

I repeat it
like an incantation

"I hate myself I hate myself I hatemyselfIhatemyselfIhatemyself-"

until the words blur
and so does my vision
the world is a smeared pencil mark
covered in a veil of darkness
that matches my mood
and my terrible thoughts.

the tears
are the worst part
of depression.

the choking
the little sobs that sneak out
making you feel         p a t h e t i c .

you wipe your eyes
rubbing them raw
and wait for them to stop leaking.

though
it
takes
a
while
.

the day you died,
was also the day
that I died.
the only difference is
that you're six feet underground
and I'm a ghost
trapped in an ugly shell.

I put a gun up to my head, if only to be with you.

he drew constellations on her skin in the finest, darkest wisps of his soul.

he found her with a bottle of pills clutched tightly in white knuckled fingers
her eyes were fallen shut and he was so tempted to leave her resting peacefully, she looked so beautiful
but after a moment
(m o m e n t .)
he realized that the girl who ran though his mind, chasing butterflies each day
h a d   c o m m i t t e d   s u i c i d e .
she always spoke about how she wanted to stroke an angel's wings
to see if they were truly as soft as they merely appeared.
her limp body lay, spread out, her hair spilling over her pillow,
anyone else might have believed she was just a sleeping beauty
but he knew.
a wretched, throat-bleeding scream filled his ears, one so full of agony and heartbreak that he fell to his knees
it took him a second of agony to realize the teeth grinding screech was coming from h i s lips.

the words are so hard, that they chip my teeth
they feel unnatural on my swollen pink tongue
there are too many, that all want to come out at once
so I choke on them, saliva rushing out past my gums
my lips split and blood gushes down my chin
leaving rust marks on the pale milky skin.

she is disgusted by me.
each and every day
her eyes scrutinize me
and my distinct flaws
her bitter words sting me
so very d e e p l y
"*****" "ugly" "what is wrong with you?"
sometimes tears roll down her gaunt cheeks
and I wonder
if I make everyone as sad
as I make her
she is a broken glass figurine
and to make herself feel whole again
she cut her skin
and created me.

he said
I was as beautiful
as the scenery
behind me

I glanced
over my shoulder
only to find
a beige wall

you see the scars
but not the reasons.

my eyebrows raise
at their
insurmountable
abundance of
ignorance.

he liked to count his ribs
( 1 2 3 4 ...)
and brush his nails against his collarbones
(so prominent...)
his palms cupped his knobby elbows
(years to perfect...)
and the sun shone between his thighs
(lighting up his world...)

his body was so very
     a l i v e
his heart beat in
   o v e r t i m e
meanwhile, his eyes were
     d e a d .

she missed the red hot trails
covering her thighs and bones.

they were her  a r t w o r k .

I drag my nails down my thighs
creating furious jagged lines
surrounded by cloudy milk white.

it stings less than the sadness I feel.

at night the insomniacs come out to play

they grab fistfulls of their hair and howl at the moon.