one tongue to live
and one to deceive
i see your eyes like waterfalls
and they’re poring over me
i feel your gaze
and it’s ******* me
sweetness in your mouth
and in your throat
down on your knees
you learned this by rote
draw the curtains
i want them all to see
this isn’t seduction
this is worship
this is rivalry
everything is a game
and no one plays it better than me

kiss a girl
with cigarettes on her breath
to know how it tastes
to be thrown away

kiss a boy
soaked in whiskey
to know the taste
of regret

give your body to a winter's boy-
he'll lay you down, strip your clothes
and you'll undress even further than that
but he'll leave you in the cold
and push your so far under his bed
he forgets he ever had such parts of you
in his own two hands and
never gave them back
you're frozen, now,
and you wait all spring
to find summer's girl
and all she does is hold your hand
and you're standing in a pool
of the ice melted around your skin.
next thing you know,
you're in a palet she made on the floor
on her balcony, overlooking the railroad
and the greenest forest on the other side
and it's 3 in the morning and
you're smoking a cigarette
to get rid of the taste of alcohol and sugar
but then you kiss her and
she tastes the same way.
you don't want the season to end
but you're still watching yourself
glow from the inside out.

there's a slam of a front door
that sends a signal to my lungs
to tell them that they need nicotine
and another to the dry throat that
says it's time for a cup of coffee

i conduct a symphony of
slowly getting out of bed

taking the first sip of coffee
always reminds me of that
first kiss we shared on
new years at midnight,
i knew i would regret it

lately, the drinks i pour in
the evening feel worse than
a burnt tongue, because it
slides down my throat, into the
into the stomach, into the veins,
into the brain that usually tells me
do not think about this tonight but

i am drunk
i am obsessive
i am harmless

i have grown so exhausted of
always being the wrong kind of
brave

i saw an injured bird
making it's way
through the grass
in my back yard.
i didn't know
how to help it,
so i put out the
last of my cigarette,
went back inside,
and picked up my phone.

1 missed call

i called you back,
you didn't answer.

this morning,
i watched a bird
helplessly search
for safety,
and walked away.

that was the second hardest part of the day.

you've seen all the bad
you've seen the nasty parts of people
the parts that betray and take advantage
so you know better
you're terrifyingly intelligent
and dangerously aware
but the love you give
is purer because of this.
don't let anyone make you feel
like damaged goods.

you were so angry that
you couldn't even speak
and i got so upset that i
ran to the bathroom to *****
and as i clutched porcelain
you rubbed my back
then walked me to the kitchen
to refill our cups with more
coke and whiskey, and we drank
and never talked about it again

the first time we
touched, your
grandmother's
wedding china
trembled in its
cabinet

but i learned that
you compulsively
avoid punishment
by devouring the
nearest misses and
digesting them as
innocence.

i wish i could
string my phrases
together with
a lace of
simplicity and
modesty.

but i am
complexed
by you.

sometimes,
i feel so empty
that i cut my own skin.
not to try to let anything out,
but to see if something will crawl in.

the sun in me must be heavy
because waking up is getting harder
i am practicing for the real thing
if we're being honest, i don't
want to see my 17th birthday
because since somewhere after
my 13th one, i have been restrained,
arms behind my back, while he
sucker-punched me in the jaw
i have spent the last 4 years
spitting blood and teeth onto the cement
and saying "thank you, thank you,
this is all i could ever want."

when i feel i'm lost,
i look for you
instead of
myself.

maybe that's my problem.

i
hold
grudges
like
my
mother
&
leave
first
like
my
father.

january stole your breath again
now you're crouched in the corner, rocking back & forth
hoping she gives it back before the season ends

this is me
S C R E A M I N G
i need more attention than i've been getting
since ***** been hard
and i am
absolutely
anything
but okay

i've been feeling, lately,
like i can't write because the
weight of your goodbye
has fogged up my head
far worse than it was
when i used to lay in my
old driveway and imagine
the weight of your truck
against my chest.
typed out easily with a
smiley face at the end of it
just to tell me that your
departure from me does not
weigh heavy on your heart.
you didn't mean it that way.

the thing is, i wrote about you
day and night the last time
you clouded up my mind
but i still choked on the air
you always made so heavy
around me the next time we
spoke, so maybe this won't
do my any good.

the days of the week
named after phases of the moon
we made love on waning crescent
& slept in when it was new

thinking of you
kept me up again
and i may be
dreaming myself
through
existence,

but when you
live in my brain
but don't sleep
in my arms,
i finally
understand
distance.

"hollow"
would be an
understatement
if i were trying to
describe how i felt
lately.

i have no words left.

maybe i'm just balanced
perfectly, for the moment
until i lose my footing,
end up at the bottom,
while you're safe on the
other end of the rope.

maybe i have false confidence,
i thought you'd have to
show me the way
but i'm sick of always standing
in your shadow
i'm tired of your blown up ego
maybe i don't need you
at all.

i thought i used to be pretty once
but back then, you weren't afraid
of anything, and i know
that you thought i was pretty too
but you stopped when i found out
you're just as afraid as i am
tell me how the drugs made it okay
i used to think you were pretty
i heard that you're looking hideous now
your skin's made of scabs, such a shame,
i guess some people might pity us
but people don’t make it okay
now i drink almost every night
i try not to think about much

i guess that i’m glad we lost touch

there was beauty, love, fire, stillness, and i gave it all to you
you put both of your hands around my neck
had a grip on me like your favorite coffee mug
mouths never moved, just trembled

when you went home, your "i love you" started sounding like an apology
now every car crash sounds like the last time i heard you say my name

all i want right now
is to write something
heavy enough that you will
collapse under the weight of it
so i will be left with pieces of you
like the way you pronounce the word "milk"
or what your hands do
to the inside of your arms when they're bored
and i know they cut your hair and threw you in a cell
but i hope you feel this as i'm writing it
i hope you collapse
i remember all those different moment
at random when someone would say your name
or smirk like you used to
like you knew something about me no one else did
but i'm bad at keeping secrets
and i want you to collapse
and i want you to feel this
and i wont pick up even one piece of it

and i still love you so ******* much

in the midst of all the chaos in my life right now, i have a tiny sliver of hope
in the form of a christmas card, written
wishing you well
            merry christmas,
                   skip

all i can do now is think about
being in missouri city by this time next year
spending holidays with a family i can stand
maybe i'll go to back to school with the comfort
of having someone stand behind me and
understand when i say that the weight
of my fear is too much to hold inside my body
and i will shatter on impact with the floor
if i try to get out of bed today

maybe i will never have to think about
the life i have now, with the mother who
does not and will not understand the words
"e m o t i o n a l  a b u s e"
and the chemical-reliant sister who doesn't
know the meaning of love and respect
and the man who can't step up and be the
adult and tell me that it is not my decision to make
maybe i will never touch another bottle
maybe i will be able to talk to the people
that it has hurt me to love, without a can in my hand
maybe i will love myself in turn of adding back
the half of my life that i have slowly lost
over the past twelve and a half years
father, despite leaving me to wonder why
i didn't know if you were even alive,
the thought of you is the purest thing
in my reach, this holiday.

hands which have touched so much
but have held onto none;
it is you that i'm asking forgiveness for.

i can hear his sigh in the hum of my ceiling fan
and i can taste him in my coffee.
this isn't depressing, this is love.
i just need to drink more.

this is about letting myself be happy, about falling in love and forgetting the rest. doing this for myself because nobody else will, because nobody else can. because the nights won’t be lonely anymore with you there and there are some things that only happen once in your life and this is one of those things, you are one of those things. how extraordinary it is to even sit in the same room as you.

just no, god, really, you should know that you made the colors bleed out of my clothes and onto my floor when you wrapped your arms around me. or that if you rolled up my sleeves on my shirts pink roses would probably grow out from underneath. start from the veins in my arms and break out. gradually turning into stems. turning into flowers. i’d say the same for my legs but i’m weak at the knees, weak at the knees getting out of my car. take a deep breath and kiss him on the lips, close my eyes and put my hands on both sides of his face. do you remember how this felt? your eyes are shut do you remember? could you time travel from now to the first time this happened because i did. your eyes were shut then too just like this. you’re back, you’re back, you’re back. i can see you again. and when i’m back in the bed i handed over my heart in, would you know that i’m better now? that you never had to worry. this is better because we need it.

and we’ll go on a date to the movies late at night and i can rest my head on you the whole time while you hold my hand and let go only so i can move my fingers up and down the inside of your palm while it rests against your leg. let’s be the last to get up, sit in the dark with the credits so i can tell you how i feel about you just a little bit. tell you like i tried to tell the complete strangers who would sit at that table in that little diner in my town because i wrote your name on a window ledge. so when they look out at the cars, at the people, maybe they’d notice, maybe they’d know i needed them to know i was happy.

you make me feel is what you do, you bring back the constantly fading parts. you’re the one and if i had to explain the way you’re beautiful it’d probably be like the pocket watch necklace i found at a secondhand store the morning after you texted me. the battery is dead and the time is stuck with both the hands over the one roman numeral, and the lady who worked there said it’d need a new battery but it doesn’t need to be fixed for me to love it. you’re beautiful like when i hold your hand i want to know every line. i want to trace veins in your arms, i want to run my fingers over the back of your hands on the knuckles.

you’re a lot like when it rains at night when i’m in bed, and i just lay there instead of going to sleep and i miss nobody in particular but i just miss places, moments. it’s coming down so slow and gold cause the street light is shining on it. i’d want you there, could i hold your hand while we watch it and could you please try for a second to know that i feel that way about you.

you feel more like images than words, like my favorite sounds or like movies that changed my life, i’ll meet you in another life when we are both cats. there aren’t so many stars here. you’re beautiful like knowing they’re up there, anyways. you’re as beautiful for as sad as i get when clouds hide them. you’re as influential to me as my suicide attempt was, and i hope that makes sense because i mean it in the best way because it changed my whole life.

i can feel you changing my life when i got out of my car and walked up to your door it was like i knew right then you can’t go back from this, and it’s scary and it’s so hard to be alive again because i signed all the papers, i signed away everything it’s all gone it was boarded all up and forgotten, and you’re dusting everything, taking all the sheets on the furniture off, and tearing off the bad wallpaper. just let me in, let me try and i won’t go anywhere, i just want to live inside you almost. i just want to do what you’re doing for me for you too, you are so beautiful in ways i will never be able to tell you but god will i try.

i just wanna lay in your lousy arms, and feel real little. i feel little already but you can’t function in the world by being how you feel, but i want you to let me be what i feel and i just want that to be something that’s okay, and i hope you kiss it all away, all the parts that i pretend i am. could you draw in my hands with your finger and push down my fingers when they try to curl up, and could i stop you by holding your hand and kissing you on your neck, just soft, just really soft cause i’m really small and let me lay my head on your chest so i can tell you i can hear your heart beating, and it sounds a lot lamer in words here than when we’re there under your covers, than when i’m feeling like i just opened up your chest and climbed inside, cause it feels like you let me even if you didn’t let me. i just want to honestly believe for a few minutes that i don’t have to ever leave that moment, how we let ourselves believe anything like that i’ll never know but i want you to try because things would be better.

i was like a bird that flew out in front of your car in the morning that didn’t get hit, i was like a ghost but you picked me up, and your hands didn’t fall right through me. you picked me up and the way you said my name didn’t hurt. it’s like we were driving on the highway in the dark with our headlights off but we made it home. we made it home singing. these are the kinds of nights where you close your eyes and you feel like they’re never closed, i’m just staring at your beautiful ******* face with the glow of the tv on it. stuck in this memory with the right soundtrack. you were just smiling, and there i was becoming real, and i’ve been trying to tell you, you make me feel real. and everyone’s been telling me to stay away from you, but how could you love someone who never hurt you, who never made you prove how much you wanted it, how much you wanted them. you’re supposed to chase him, why didn’t you chase him?

i guess what i wanted more than anything was for you to see youself the way i saw you, to know that i love you in this bizarre unreal way where i don’t even know everything about you but i want to. and all i can feel is how closed these doors are. i find myself so desperate for any part of you, even the parts you gave no one because they aren’t important. no one watches for those kinds of things, the number of freckles on your arm or the way you squeeze my hand twice, but here i am in love with you, in love with your quirks, in love with how utterly human you are, how nobody appreciated the most appreciatable things about a person. this is all the b footage that i can’t stop watching, i am drowning in the parts everybody saw but nobody watched. that’s where i fell in love with you.

just oh my god, i really am so in love with you and everything makes so much sense when i’m with you, and that sounds so stupid and cliche but it really does,  it makes sense because you’re my other half and it feels like i’m done making the pieces that never fit fit, your hands were really meant to hold mine, i think i really believe again in this childish way that i threw out months ago that soulmates are real, because you are mine in every sense of the word.

i'm punching the walls until they bleed
eyes wide for days without a minute of sleep
i am your bedroom when it's too dark to see
and i am your heart when you hand it to me
i was freezing and wet under the pale sky
with a cigarette in my hand, we made it inside
starting forest fires with the bat of an eye
everything is warm between you and i

i used to listen to flatsound's album
scotland, i wish you had stayed
in the passenger seat, back and forth
between home and the place i wanted it to be
where i couldn't ignore the winter
and the dull pulse of abandoned laughter
throughout houses that look like
what i feel like on a bad day

and today was a bad day
i want to travel backwards
to a time i can remember actually trying  
walking the few streets home from school
anticipating telling you how my day went
so you could call me and say,
"i'm happy for you, princess"

i don't try anymore and
it's been a long time since
you have been happy
about anything except
******* me

how many licks does it take
to get to the center of
your universe?

i'll never know

yesterday
we got lost in the woods
(i thought we were going somewhere)
but you didn't kiss me back
and then you told me you liked me.
i don't know
what i'm supposed
to do with that.

last night
you threw me on your floor
and dug into my back
like you wanted to hold on.
then you walked me to my car
opened up the door
and said "drive safe,
call me when you get home."
you never answered and
you haven't texted me back
and i still don't know
what i'm supposed
to do with that.

you are the difference between
the salt and the honey
you both pour on my wounds
you are the way i feel
after 2 cups of coffee and
the first cigarette of the day
you are the purple, red, yellow
you are the blue in the
pigment of my knuckles after
biting them, waiting for your
sweetest replies and
your most bitter neglect
you are the gold glitter
my heart is so fond of
you are the realizations
i make and forget by morning
you've waited so long for this
i don't know how you handle
being the center of
everything i cannot

you said it was strange
you thought someone in your body was telling you about what you couldn't remember. it was nice sometimes, and others, not so much. i didn't tell you that it was me. i wanted to stay there. a fraction of someone you used to be. a shaved head, a green jacket, a cheesy smile, a feeling you get when your heart breaks and you think "this is just the beginning."
you told me you're trying to be a better man now. you've been telling me that for a while. i see it, though.
you blamed the pills when you came back to see what state you left me in. not that you ever really left, nothing is ever permanent with you. that's what i love and hate most.
you're a silver tongued devil with one of the biggest hearts i've ever held. you said you felt bad for all of the girls you hurt when you couldn't feel. i asked if you were talking about me. ironically, you said, you weren't.
a while ago, you called me "the best thing since cable **** and beer" and i laughed. last week, you said i had **** eyes. i stopped wearing my make up that way.
last night, i had a dream where you were a preacher at a church, i sat in the front row, but instead of preaching the word of God, you just screamed at me about how sorry you are for all of this.

his is drug withdrawal,
but with a boy.
he’s just sitting
on my bed side table
staring at me and i
keep cutting him
into lines,
but i can’t inhale him.

can’t inhale him cause
my nose is filled with blood
and if i tried,
i’d just be swallowing that.