When I was fourteen
And looking for Home
They told me I'd find it
Between lavender walls
And wooden floors
They said it'd smell like
Warm sugar cookies
And fresh hazelnut coffee
They said I'd cry into
The softest of pillows
And wrap my broken limbs
Around the warmest of blankets
But by the time I made it there
The walls were lined in bruises
The floors were cold and calloused
It smelled like cigarettes,
Whiskey
And cherry incense
The pillow I cried into
Would rise and fall
In an uneasy rhythm,
Sometimes breaking off
Into random shaking
And the blanket I wrapped
My broken limbs around,
Often had broken limbs
Of its own
Because
When I finally found Home
It wasn't a place at all
But a boy with bloodshot eyes
And a crooked smile

you are inches
measured by miles away
bulldozing oriental food
you don't intend on eating
around your plate
and i am imagining
the translation of asking
for a broom in a foreign language
for when you shatter over small talk
or the first sentence to start with "so"
breaks you into shaking
that i can feel from across the table
and i am thinking now
about tectonics and how you must be daydreaming of being submerged in a book
back home or gripping tightly
to bedsheets begging for familiar warmth
i can tell by the way you are looking at me
that you are feigning our salutation embrace
seconds drowned in ankle deep water and i wonder if you see my hands
as jackhammers and if the reason
why you hug so hard
but only for a moment
is to be as sharp as possible
so that i do not smell your perfume
or notice that you aren't wearing any and why
there are few suprises
in the safe you claim is a mouth
where shades of plush pink
hide a sickly pallor
and i continue to look over
brick & mortar borders
and think how maybe
she is thinking of kissing
but certainly not me
not these apologies nailed to my face
i give myself a moment
of benefitted doubt that you sometimes
picture your frame under mine
and if your clavicles would crack
if i were to touch them
i am sorry that i am a victim of imagination
but i swear i chalk it up
as the forgotten feeling
for when you look up
and the person you are looking
at is gazing directly at you
you have painted yourself
as a mosaic in my mind
as a mess of dust & incoherent words
that all sound like please in my ears
but that doesn't explain why
my hands are the ones that are shaking
when i imagine you
imagining me
in the spaces of yourself
where you've forgotten
you could put someone

I am not making progress and
Maybe I never will.

I knew giving my all to a boy
With such destructive tendencies
Was my biggest failure, but
Who could deny your hands or
The way you whispered
"I want you"?

Your ocean eyes and sand-colored hair
Sould have warned me because the
First time we touched was a day after
The beach, and I remember every
Person in your house on that given day
And I swear there are ghosts in
My walls that sound just like your bed.

I wonder now why the ghosts I hide
Under piles of our clothes (the same clothes
That have seen your bedroom floor)
Have taken on the form of you.

I need you because you are familiar
And because of that I will always
Feel alone in a crowded room regardless
Of the faces that plague my life daily.

Kiss me until the bitterness of fear
Leaves my veins and the oxygen in
My lungs is no longer his.

The only thing left to give up on me
Is my own bones, but I feel the rust
Through the marrow and
I am out of time.

How much time did we have?
How many bars of soap must
One person go through to remove
The feel of another from their skin?

I can confirm that if he is anything like you
I will not be able to keep breathing and
That is not a metaphor for how
You took my breath away.

Stop wasting your time on me,
I am nothing but broken bones
And broken hearts, stiched incorrectly
As so and I do not have enough glue to
Fix what is left in shambles.

The last time we spoke you asked me
Why I told you I still loved you and no
Longer wanted go be with you,
But that still stands and
I'll love you til the day I die.