You are the glowing coal in the bonfire-
The one that stays hot and bright
Never to burn out or turn to ash
But to thaw frozen fingers indefinitely.

We are entwined and entangled
Bright eyes locked, greedy for each other.
Bodies held together like a Chinese finger trap.
You smile. I unravel.
Your lips put me back together.

You are the earth, the grass, the sun.
Revitalizing and calming, fantastic and real.
I breathe you in and I begin again.
With senses in overdrive and nerves in flames,
I take you in and we are one again.

I stopped loving you on my birthday. Did you know that?
It shocked me out of that confused numbness I'd been living in
Momentarily.

Like a twig snapping
A candle, quickly snuffed.
All the other cliches people use to say that what was,
Suddenly isn't.
Can't be, anymore.

But it was sudden
And it was shocking
And I didn't know what to do.

So I tried to pass it off as ***
Or stress, or distraction. But I knew what it was.
I knew what it wasn't, anymore. You didn't.

I wonder when you stopped loving me
Because surely you've stopped loving me
And I'm glad you've stopped loving me.
It's all I hoped for, from that day to the end.
I hope it was before the end.

For my birthday, I made my cupcakes
Drank my liquor
And prepared myself to remember how to love you.
But I knew I couldn't, anymore.

hands too soft
lips too hesitant
him, any him any one- never enough

push me grab me bite me
anything

anything to make me feel
something
again

Blood rushes to your head
And takes over, controls you.
The buzzing left in your ears from his mouth drowns out everything.
You try to move but your legs go weak;
Bone is not bone, but more blood
Limp and liquid.

You let him hold you up so he'll hold you down later.

You discover swollenlipsracingheart is not a cliche
It is a medical condition and you are a victim.

The cure is more
-more hands, more tongues.

Breathless, you breathe him in.

I wonder if it's harder for you
Or easier, or nothing.
It's hard for me.

Awake: alone.
Phone: silent.
Home: not home.

It comes in waves
And when I think it's stopped, the cat looks at me like that
Or you say "you can take the bed"
Or I see others, being what we were, long ago.
They won't stop coming.

Out of no where, torrential rains attacked
Leaving class, on the public bus
In the shower where we made love, once.
Twice
Three times.
It's over.

Floating, adrift.
Like a speck in a kid's book
A dandelion seed in the air
Minus the grace.
A purgatorial lack of gravity
Empty.

I guess you were my earth
And now I'm lost in space.
But it's time I made my world,
And stop abusing yours.

Acidic, buttery purple
Baby pink half-moons
Cleansecalm my aura

I shall be the conquerer and the conquered.