"oh, there you are", and i’m not sure
where i’m supposed to have been
here we are again angelflower
tying stones to our chests and waiting to drown (this is okay,
i swear to god, or something like that
isnt that what i’m supposed to say?)
i want to set the world on fire, gaslit galaxy
isnt it so fitting? isnt it just perfect?
i wonder how many astronomy problems you havent solved
and you say, "god
this isn't important right now
how can you be a god when you're not immortal"
sometimes i think you can feel me bleeding from 1643 miles away
this isn’t neverland anymore--
what are you afraid of?
something about cornfields and misery heartbeats and
almost like you said something you shouldn’t have,isn’t it? you’re always
so proud,
you’re always so hungry.
by god, you old man, you weathered, withered, beast
grab a shovel, grab whatever you can
this isn’t neverland anymore--
this isn’t andromeda,no galaxy here,
no stars or planetary confinement,
and you were never icarus.

she told me that this is what it was like to be a firestorm,and i believed her.youre not golden sweetheart,
none of us are.we're not meant to look nice.
this is for our eyes only.dont look me in the eyes
and pretend that you dont know what i mean
take me to the cathedral pour holy water over my shivering shaking bones
build a baby grand out of my corpse,honey,its the only one ive got.
dont pretend you dont feel it too
and even if ill never be as romantic as you,at least ill try
at least i wont leave you here
gasoline on pavement,dying the only way you know how
they told me i could be anything i wanted so i turned myself into a gun,
hollow like your stomach when all youve had to eat the past three days is stale ******* bread.
dont look at me like that.
i know all of your secrets and youre the one still forgetting about my jaw,the one you broke.
i see it in your eyes.we both know how this ends
but I wont pull the trigger on heartbreak hills
not until theres more whiskey than broomsticks beating us ******
cigarette **** wrists against a concrete wall,you always were one for a metaphor werent you?
jesus,babe you look so beautiful in this light.would you let me take your picture with the old kodak we pretend doesnt exist?
im sorry if this is forward of me,but i think id like it if you dug bruises
into my throat
loving the only way you know how,and this isnt the kind of love you see in movies
cause its not really love when neither of you can stop chainsmoking for a ******* second
to look at the way the sun glints off hair at just the right time.
maybe if i had sinners hips youd kiss me,just the way i like
too much,all at once.this,you say,
this is what its like to be a firestorm.
we tell people we're just close friends,like in the way real people are close friends,
we tell people that the bruises on both our mouths are just from the red wine,silly,isnt it obvious?
the train station is too crowded.im fidgety
and the woman in the dress sitting next to me is reading a newspaper article about string theory
i wonder if it tells her about the way i sewed my mouth shut one winter
(or maybe that was you.whatever.its the same ******* thing anyway,isnt it,you say.stop ******* smiling at me like that.you know its not funny)
i wonder if she knows that the needle does not have to be very sharp to pierce the skin.
lesson one:stop pretending that youre the dragon.
lesson two:god.god.god youre ******* annoying.cant you keep your ******* mouth shut?i told you not to tell anyone,you ******* *******.if you show up outside my house again ill **** you.
dont leave someone voicemails after they leave you for the subway station. they will not reply.
this is normal.
you called me a narcissistic ***** and i think you were right but at least i think im worth something,right?at least i havent given up on my collarbones,thrown
them away like they're ******* trash.but what i mean to say is,
at least im not like you.at least i dont have a scar on my upper lip.
stop telling me that the ******* is a ******* metaphor,
this isnt a novel and im not a vampire
and last time i checked your eyes were brown,not black.youre not a monster so stop trying to be one.
the woman sitting next to me on the airplane wont stop reciting bible verses but i dont feel any more holy than i did three hours ago.
this isnt a ******* contest.you cant compete with someone to be the most ****** up,god whats wrong with you
havent you read about cain and abel
this will end the only way it possibly can
stop hanging grave markers on walls,cant you see the marks on your fingers
this isnt a ballad for a dead man and i dont mean to be condescending
but i like the way you kiss people,ten days after the time of death
and maybe ive left you too many voicemails at three in the morning
and maybe i stained your pillowcase with whiskey and secrets
but listen up,honey,you need me more than i need you
dont lie to me,you know its true
youre lying down at the bottom of the gymnasium swimming pool
and somehow youve managed to find comfort in it
dear reader:im sorry.im sorry about the mixtapes,okay,you were never supposed to find them and-and ****,ive messed everything up.bye.see you soon,
i guess.

you hated poems so much that you
became one, sweetheart
(tell me, does this suit your tastes?have i gone too far?)
i tried to write a love poem and it turned into a suicide note that doesnt belong to me
i guess you didnt find it romantic when i called you carrotseed,
when i pined so much that i turned my love into a grove of trees
you make comparisons between me and natural disasters like it's a habit you can't get rid of
but there's nothing natural about the way my heart beats when i see you
baby, your eyes have never looked better

about today--
goodmorning, beautiful. your hair looks nice like that.
goodmorning, dont ask me how i slept and i wont ask you.
goodmorning--i made you tea, just how you like it
maybe you’ll like it today. i cant sleep. its 3 in the morning,beautiful,
how are you?
goodmorning, princess. your hair looks nice like that.
goodmorning, how did you sleep?
goodmorning, the corpses on the front lawn look a lot like you and i.

you are blood blood blood
hurricanes coming down in the midwest
and all i can think about are your hands
swaying like that on my hips
baby,
keep me like this
choke on my debts
choke on my regrets,
make me feel like a home again, and
maybe i'll let you in someday
baby, keep me like this
i like it when you kiss me
i wanna be yours

remember your hands, remember them like this, twirling cigarettes like ballerinas (you were four, and your mother said you looked beautiful up there). twist my fingers with your pretty hands, darling i'll thank you in the morning, gravel in my dead heart, littering rose petals at your wake you took my tongue and made it something sickening.

eat me raw, please, please, i need something to do with my fingertips, with the small of my back you bruise so much prettier than i do close your fingers around my throat i like the way you leave marks. i'm a disease and you're the closest i can come to something worth dying for.

call me beautiful, praise my hips and dig your pretty teeth into my spine. my skin is too big for my body but i'll wear it for you anyway i'll try to be pretty for you anyway your laughter lines are a geometry problem let me solve you, let me fold your smiles into me i promise i won't disappoint you.

"have you ever been in love", and "i love you i love you i love you", and "we're sorry, you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service", and oh my god i love you but not in the way i'm supposed to, is it still love if i want you to carve your initials into the arch of my spine?

i'm disgusting and you're disgusting, claw your way into my stomach, hold my bleeding organs in your hands and smile at me (i know this is true love, isn't that how predators look at prey, god i want you to kiss me with your canines, god i want you to break the flesh, god i, god), i'm ******* immortal i can't die i'm prometheus chained to a rock and i can feel the sun drying my lips give me water, give me blood i don't care anymore--

and, loving you is like loving a forest fire (god, this is just like those old mixtapes you made for me, the ones with "this is for you", and "i love you i love you i love you", and "we're sorry, you have reached a number--", and god, i, god, eat me raw, and, oh god, oh god, i can't wait to eat you raw, babe, i wonder how you taste, i wonder if i'll taste you on my tongue three days after, oh god, oh god, eat me raw).

you forged your own steel in the molten lava of my belly, a pennyworth of paradise,
frozen tree branches dripping icicles down my back
this is what it feels like to be an active volcano
anatomy lessons are nothing like the curve of your spine while you're asleep
rising and falling like a familiar chorus
i know this dance well, i've memorized the steps you will take
locked it inside my chest and threw away the key
lake michigan warm underneath the mattress in your room
you, me, and stormdoor-fragile winter nights
you hold whispers in your palms like they're something holy
there's a word buried in your lungs, in the nape of your neck, and you don't quite know how to pronounce it
i can still feel your fingers exploring the dip at the bottom of my spine like there's treasure somewhere
you just haven't found it yet, and
you tell me my house is more like a graveyard, and
remember when we found red underneath our fingernails, and
remember when there was more ash in your hair than in the ground, and
i love you i love you i love you, and so on
this is a stolen book off a stolen shelf and it still says that i love you, and so on
we were never in love with each other, not how we were supposed to
"this will destroy you", but it didnt
you're bleeding on everything and my hands are starting to slip and grab my hand
(and this isn't how it's supposed to go, but i still love you, and so on)

and yeah, we won the war but we lost everything else

me, after i traced dirt up my arms and underneath my skin. i can still find you in my veins, turning blood into a maelstrom, this isn't what rain is supposed to feel like, i can taste wire fences on the tip of my tongue but i still can't get the smell of you out of my mouth

me, choking on dead air, static playing on an endless loop in my jaw, deaddeaddead i'm dead i can feel breath rattling in my lungs and i'm dead this must be what corpses feel like

me, imagining what corpses feel like

me, imagining what corpses feel like

me, imagining what corpses feel like

me, me, me, me, me, looped around three hundred times, me, not entirely there, me not there at all, me, me, me, dead dead dead, static, static, static, static, static, static,

me, rubbing rope burns into my thighs in the middle of a panic attack

me, imagining lighting myself on fire in the middle of the night

me, lighting myself on fire in the middle of the night

me, thinking about dying

me, feeling dead but not dying

me, clenching my hands so hard i can feel my entire body vibrating with it i'm a god i'm immortal hit me ******* hit me i swear to god i won't ******* bleed

me, static, dead, dead, dead, dead, ******* static on repeat, a record broken in three different places, static fuzzy on my slippery tongue

me, smashed to pieces, unholy lovely thing

me, blood blistering between my teeth

you, being lit on fire in the middle of the night

you, dead