It’s a lovely restaurant.

   Lovely.

   There is no artificial lighting. Just hundreds of candles that flicker from recessed niches in the walls and on every table.

   And you’ve done everything right so far. From seating me in my chair, with the slight brush of your knuckles across my bare shoulders as you removed my light jacket, to taking my purse from my bloodless fingers to place it next to my feet, you have excelled. As you knelt beside me and ran your fingertips up my bare leg you lift your perfect lips into a melting smile that promises everything.

   I want everything

   And there you are, sitting across from me. So perfect, my dream, my nightmare, my man of the hour, my choice. The candle light is kind to you and as I stare over the glass rim of a red wine I’m enthralled by your voice. I don’t know what you're saying but you just have to keep talking and I’ll just keep redrawing you in the candlelight.

   You have utterly, beguilingly captured me.

   The candle on the table has lit a fire in your eyes. I imagine the fires of Hell burn there and shiver at the thought of all that wickedness. The way you ran your fingers through your hair has tricked me into thinking that two small (very ****) horns protrude from your head. It’s an illusion, but one that I’m happy to run with.

   As you pick up my hand and feather kisses along my fingertips I feel the brush of the stubble on your face which I’m sure wasn’t there when we walked hand in hand to our table but the ****** hair is unmistakable. Is it possible I’m here with a Lycanthrope? Will our evening end with me running bare foot through the woods while a howl scrapes delicious shivers down my spine? Will I fall to my knees, a victim of the beast as it stalks me, scenting the wind, marking it’s prey, spying me and leaping to devour me? One glance at the full moon suggests I might be in for a wild night.

   In the candlelight you morph into all of my fantasies. But now, I’m just hungry.

   The illusion is just too hard to hold. I haven’t eaten since my last foray into the mortal world and I’m too tired to hold onto the hope that I can make it past reality.

   The restaurant drops away. The candles burn down to one lowly guttering torch and you're just a little boy (next to my 712 years) standing in a cave, where I have lured you and you're more than aware that you're not desert, you’re the main meal and the adrenaline coursing through your beautiful veins have my fangs dropping and my eyes smoldering but don’t worry, I can make it pleasurable, if I want to, it depends whether my fantasies have been strong enough, but I will respect you…

   Of course!

I used to get high every day.
I thought that it would take the pain away.
I used to think that I could make it end
So I would break the leaves from those stems.
I would light the L and take a hit,
And think to myself, "****, this is some good ****."

As my body was overcome by the effects of the plant,
My mind would wonder back to the days of when we first met
I was young and dumb,
****, just the thought of you would make me numb.

I established relationships with the people around you to see if I could get close to you
And it worked
You grew on me
And I on you

Sometimes you were hot,
And other times you we're cold
Sometimes you could be purple like royalty,
And other times you could be green with envy.
Now and again you would overwhelm my body
And at the same time, you'd stab at my soul

I got to a point to where I wanted to move further
But you were reluctant to do so.
So you ended it
I was devastated

One would think that this would be something easy to cope with
Nah, not at all

When I saw you with the next one, my heart would drop
I saw you moving fast with him
I knew it wouldn't last, but I kept my mouth shut
He ended it with you but moved on to "better things"

Time passed and now he's turnin' tricks to get his fix
You changed him
The same way you changed me, only I never moved on with you
So I wasn't caught with cuts and track marks

As I come back to reality,
I think of what you meant to me
Everything
You were my first
Hell, I still think about you
years later

I wonder what it would be like if I had stayed with you
Honestly, I know I'm better off without you
But even the little encounters that we have with each other now
Make me feel some type of way
I wonder if we could make another day

The sting of fingernails, arm rubbed raw;
I want to destroy things. Take out everything and
Shatter all of the glass I can find. It's a symbol.
My mind is falling apart and no one gets it! My
Grades fail for a reason. Everything is changing since
I was found out. I need to escape. Move out,
Get away from it all; forget. Please let me forget.

i reached into myself today
tried to hide in music with short titles and short stories
only ate candy and sat on my bed criss cross apple sauce with a blanket only over my right knee
thought about learning the fiddle, or the saxophone
it's too hard to get up and get motivated when i'm skipping my classes every chance i get

I skipped the second half of school,
went home and grabbed a shovel.
As I was digging a hole big enough to bury my problems,
my friend texted me, said
Just watch two episodes of a show on Netflix,
then see how you feel afterwards.
Let me know if you feel any better.

I didn't text her back,
didn't tell her that 81 minutes of Beavis and Butthead
didn't quite do the job.
I didn't tell her that I googled "How to Love Yourself"
and I definitely didn't tell her that out of the 24 steps on WikiHow,
only one could save me.
Step number 5 was "Forgive yourself."
My first thought was,
How are you going to make that number 5?
23 other steps to being a passionate person who is truly grateful
do not compare to
forgiving yourself.
That's the hardest part.
My second thought was how.
How can I forgive myself,
when my dog greets me every morning
with bright eyes and puppy kisses
and I tell him to go away
and I push him off my lap
because he's taking up too much time?
How can I forgive myself
when step number 3 suggests keeping a diary,
and my first reaction is to look down at my legs because
my thighs are enough of a diary as it is.
These scars tell people more sad stories about me than they’d ever need to know.

Beavis and Butthead didn't do the job because there is no job
there's only volunteer work and benefits to claim.