once bitten, twice shy.
makes perfect sense
but i'm pressing the teethmarks
she left on my chest
and i've missed this tender aching.
i've missed the misery that
summarises me when we're apart.
infatuated.
cross my masticated beating heart
stick a needle in my eye
once bitten, twice shy
i'll try to fall in love once
before i die.

im not in the mood for meaning or purpose or tears or emotions
not in for all that this time
i want something quick and easy
so i can carry on and you can go back to ignoring me

are what i feel when my hands tremble as i pick up the phone
my heart pounds so hard i hear it in my ears as i decide what to do
i pray that you dont answer that i can leave you a message
i dont want to hear your voice i dont i dont i dont
i dont because i know that if i do
ill begin to shake
not shake how i do when im cold or angry but instead
ill shake how i do when im terrified
because the thought of seeing you hearing you merely being around you
it makes me shake so violently
like an iv filled with pure anxiety was stuck into me
yet i talk to you i laugh with you and im around you
not all that often rarely actually
but even still i feel ***** after being near you
and not everyone will see it but the hands.
my hands
will begin to shake.

i want you to know
when you don't write back
i fill in the blank pages myself
and you say terrible things.
i write 'til white paper turns black and
every word drips with the vindictive
spit that rolls right off your tongue
like it's natural. like you're filled to the brim
with venom, and it spills from the tip
of your fountain pen.
and then i remember when
i receive a letter that isn't laced with
my insecurities, there's not a bad bone
in your body. i see you smiling
and all the venom drains from your teeth.
i remember why i'm so scared
of losing touch.
write back soon.

you know that feeling that you get often but not often. you feel parts of it constantly but only sometimes do you get the whole effect. that feeling that starts in your stomach- feels similar to a punch. it takes the breath out of you for what seems like an eternity of time, and before you can remember to breathe again, you become focused on this punch. it's expanding now. up your esophagus and all the way down to your abdomen. you can almost picture it as a big deep thick dark fog just spreading throughout your body. you fall to the ground gasping for air while blinded by all of the warm salty tears that snuck up on the back of your eyeballs ever so subtlety
it's the worst feeling i've ever felt.
its embarrassment.

I'll spend the night ripping up bedsheets and punching holes in the walls -
maybe then the pain will subside

I tried to drown the thoughts of him in the strongest drink, but they are unaffected
and have learned to swim.

Do we indeed desire the dead
  Should still be near us at our side?
  Is there no baseness we would hide?
No inner vileness that we dread?

Shall he for whose applause I strove,
  I had such reverence for his blame,
  See with clear eye some hidden shame
And I be lessen'd in his love?

I wrong the grave with fears untrue:
  Shall love be blamed for want of faith?
  There must be wisdom with great Death:
The dead shall look me thro' and thro'.

Be near us when we climb or fall:
  Ye watch, like God, the rolling hours
  With larger other eyes than ours,
To make allowance for us all.

The lesser griefs that may be said,
  That breathe a thousand tender vows,
  Are but as servants in a house
Where lies the master newly dead;

Who speak their feeling as it is,
  And weep the fulness from the mind:
  'It will be hard,' they say, 'to find
Another service such as this.'

My lighter moods are like to these,
  That out of words a comfort win;
  But there are other griefs within,
And tears that at their fountain freeze;

For by the hearth the children sit
  Cold in that atmosphere of Death,
  And scarce endure to draw the breath,
Or like to noiseless phantoms flit:

But open converse is there none,
  So much the vital spirits sink
  To see the vacant chair, and think,
'How good! how kind! and he is gone.'

O Sorrow, wilt thou live with me
  No casual mistress, but a wife,
  My *****-friend and half of life;
As I confess it needs must be;

O Sorrow, wilt thou rule my blood,
  Be sometimes lovely like a bride,
  And put thy harsher moods aside,
If thou wilt have me wise and good.

My centred passion cannot move,
  Nor will it lessen from to-day;
  But I'll have leave at times to play
As with the creature of my love;

And set thee forth, for thou art mine,
  With so much hope for years to come,
  That, howsoe'er I know thee, some
Could hardly tell what name were thine.

My own dim life should teach me this,
  That life shall live for evermore,
  Else earth is darkness at the core,
And dust and ashes all that is;

This round of green, this orb of flame,
  Fantastic beauty; such as lurks
  In some wild Poet, when he works
Without a conscience or an aim.

What then were God to such as I?
  'Twere hardly worth my while to choose
  Of things all mortal, or to use
A little patience ere I die;

'Twere best at once to sink to peace,
  Like birds the charming serpent draws,
  To drop head-foremost in the jaws
Of vacant darkness and to cease.