The other day
When I said that your face reminds me of a rhinoceros
I wasn't saying that you look like a bulky box
Or that your skin looks grey
I was really trying to say that
You make me feel like there are a hundred
5 ton mammals stampeding across my heart
And sometimes when I look at you
I can't even breathe
Because all the weight of wanting this
Crushes my lungs til my chest burns like an African desert
Consequently most rhinos are found in Africa
And I researched all of this in the hopes that
Maybe you would understand

You see the thing is I am not good with emotions
And I know as much about love as I know about quantum physics
And I don't even know what quantum physics is about
Or what it means for that matter

I've been trying to read all the romance novels that I could find
I've been trying to watch all the rom-coms I can torrent
Hell I even watched Valentine's Day thrice
But I still don't know what to do when I'm with you

I am unsure and clumsy and petrified
So much so that I can't even work up the courage
To hold your hand
I'm trying, I really am
It's just so **** difficult
When falling in love feels more like
Jumping out of a helicopter
A hundred thousand feet up
Without a parachute on

One day I will be able
To directly say what I really mean
Without metaphors involving animals
That only I understand
But for now let me just say
Your face reminds me of a rhinoceros

In my native language
The word "mahal" means
"Love" and "Expensive"
Somehow you've made the two
Synonymous

I will gather all the flowers in the world
And lay them before your feet
I will unhook every shining ball of fire
Just for you to keep
I will willingly choke on honeyed juices
Til all my words sound sweet
I will drink up all the salty ocean water
So that there is none left for you to weep
I will use my mouth like an instrument
To teach you that love has a beat
No matter how unsteady it may be

But all that can't compensate for all this because

I will trash and thrash around your lovely heart
I will punch holes into walls when I feel like we're world's apart
I will drown myself in ***** when everything starts to feel like an attacking dart
I will smash mirrors, make my skin bleed and my veins part
Because
I
am
only
good
at
the
start

I loved a boy before
Who had angry slashes on his wrist
And drank way too much
Way too often

Sometimes he would go
To all these buildings
And he would step on the ledges
With his arms wide open
And a manic gleam in his eyes

My best friend said
That I should run away
Get away from him
Because he is far too damaged
And far too scarred
She said he was broken

I said I loved him
She said she didn't get it

But the thing is
She didn't see him
Smiling gently at the fireworks
During the 4th of July

And she didn't see him
Tracing the words
On his favorite books
With a reverent kind of awe

And she didn't see him
Laugh when it started
To rain

I think what I'm trying to say here is
She didn't see the parts
Which made him so easy
So very easy to love

He didn't either

My dear, every touch from you
Is holy absolution
Every press of the lips
Is a new wave of salvation
Time and time again
You have rescued me from damnation
In you lies the sacred and the divine
Darling, the prophets would have built shrines
With roofs touching the skies
Altars all bathed in golden light
Crusaders would have stabbed every man
With their own spines
Kings and queens and popes
Would have swallowed
The gems from their crowns and thrones
To have this love

This love is too big
To be shoved into confessionals
This love is too holy
For tightly gripped prayer beads
And acts of contrition
This love is too great
For anything less than
The highest seat in heaven

No old bearded bible entity
Can tell me how to live in my faith
No-one- not even Leviticus or Moses or whoever the ****
Can tell me that this is a sin

How can it be a sin
When I have stopped searching for God
The moment I saw you

I blamed our separation on the fact that the edges of the universe keep moving away from each other

I don't know when
The idea of starving myself
Became so appealing

I don't know when
It would stop
either

Act One
Scene: a blue room with white curtains all drawn together tight
A broken record player filling my mouth with buzzing noise
You sit on the couch the way a queen sits on a conquered city
My eyes blind themselves with the dark of your hair

Time: When the sun and the moon collide

This is the part where I meet you
Where I really meet you
Where I get to know the inside of your cheek
The beating of your fluttery heart
The bruises on your sides like blooming roses
The soft hush of your words melting into my mouth

We play at lovers in a game that isn't our own

Act Two
Scene: Flashing lights sending the room into a flurry of technicolor madness
A bottle of ***** burning my throat like swallowed wooden matches
In a sea of movement you turn into a deity all on your own
My hands shake from the inside out and it is nothing, it is nothing

Time: When the waves engulfed the shore

This is the part where I hate you
Where I don't really hate you
But I hate him and him and her and him
And the way you are holding on to bones that are not my own
The clawing at my chest
The blood spinning in my head
The way you mean everything to me
And I don't even cast a shadow in your world
The way you shine and all I can do is long

I never meant for jealousy to wear my skin like a tailored suit

Act Three
Scene: An empty street and a lonely light
Jagged bricks digging into the soft part of my neck
You lean on a car and you don't look me in the eye
My tongue bleeds from all the words I cannot say

Time: When the stars fall from the sky

This is the part where I lose you
Except that I don't really lose you
Because in order to lose something, you must first have it
And I never had you
But I did keep your butterfly laugh in the cracks between my ribs
Your favorite lipstick in the pocket of my jacket
The broken shards of your full length mirror buried in my hands

I knew some people always loved more, always loved less, but I never knew you didn't love at all

Act Four
Scene: a blue room with white curtains all drawn tight
A broken record player imitating life
You are nowhere to be found  and yet your ghost keeps popping around
My spine creaks from the weight of the world, of love, of you

Time: When the moon stills sing for the morning light

This is the part where I wait for you
Where I really wait for you
Because I am stupid and naive and hopelessly hopeful
And maybe it's pathetic
But I'm still waiting for the sound of your heavy footsteps
Your red sweater on my desk
The warmth of your presence
For you to love me back

I'm still waiting for you to come back

You said you wanted to
Know me better
So here I go:

I've got exactly 28 pens
I know because I counted

I've got too many notebooks
Yet I can't stop
Buying more and more

Sometimes when it's 4 am
And my mind is
Driving me to the brink
Of total insanity
I take 3 showers
to try and calm myself down
(It never works)

I like apple juice but I hate apples

I've never been good in math

There are too many
Cigarette burns
On the crook of my elbow
And scars on my thighs
and demons in my head

I love the smell of cinnamon

Once when I was 15
I drank blue paint
Because I think blue is beautiful
And I wanted to be beautiful too

That didn't work

So I drank a bottle of bleach
To clean my very core

It didn't work either

Now you know me better
I understand if you'd want
To run away now
It's okay
Save yourself
Run

1.) When your mother tells you she wants to **** herself, you will have to force a fist down your throat to keep yourself from saying "me too".

2.) You will sit in shocked silence like the ocean as it waits for the storm to pass. The storm will not pass. It will always be there. It will uproot the foundations of your home. It will drown you in the crying of the skies.

3.) Her hands will shake like a series of earthquakes have been running through her veins. You will try not to resent her. You will fail.

4.) Her lower lip will tremble like a leaf swaying in the darkness. You will try not to resent her. You will fail.

5.) She will say "I want to be engulfed by the sea. I want to not be able to breathe". You will have to force a fist down your throat to keep yourself from saying "me too"

6.)  Her eyes become headlights and you become the deer. You will want to run away. Don't run away.

7.) There will be days where you will miss the sound of nothing her arms can bring. There will be days where you will have to inject concrete into your own. There will be days where you will have to carry the weight of her broken spine and you will wonder how something so seemingly fragile can be so heavy. There will be days where you will have to be the strong one. But you are never the strong one.

8.) If you can't stop your tears from soaking your pillow, do not forget to flip it over. Do not let her the stains. Do not let her see your pain. Do not let her see how much this makes you want to bleed out from your eyes.

9.) She will say "I want to hang from the highest tree. I want to not be able to breathe". You will have to force a fist down your throat to keep yourself from saying "me too"

10.) These walls are a lot harder than you think and your knuckles are weaker than they look so please, don't try to punch holes into them. Take a camera and satisfy yourself with the emptiness of your own soul.

11.) Your brother will be screaming into the oblivion and you will be lying spread eagle on the floor of your bedroom. You will think of the mountain of ******* you have to face yourself. You will want to ignore him. You won't be able to. You will want to be selfish. Don't be selfish.

12.)  The TV will only show reruns and the news will keep repeating itself. No matter how much you want to smash the screen and rip the paper into shreds, don't.

13.) There are lines connecting you to this to her to life to death to flying to falling to burning to choking on every word you wanted to say.

14.) When your mother tells you she wants to **** herself, you will have to force a fist down your throat to keep yourself from saying "me too".

15.) You will regret forcing a fist down your throat to keep yourself from saying "me too"

I'm getting better
And you know what's the best part?
You're not fixing me

The truth is
We are all running
From something

A daughter runs
From a father
Who never loved her

An alcoholic runs
From the cold harsh reality
Sobriety brings

A man runs
From the shattered
Foundations of a love
That didn't ever work

But if you're
Very lucky
I think that
One day
Maybe
Just maybe
You would be
Running
                   Towards
Something

I've been driving all night
With the headlights turned off
And I've got no sight of the road I'm on
I'm not trying to be edgy
I just wanna see what it feels like to walk straight into danger
I don't wanna die
I really don't
I just wanna know if pain tastes differently
If it isn't coming from inside of me

We used to write stories on each other’s arm
About Greek gods
I wrote about Apollo and how my world revolves around him
Because Apollo is made of sunlight and he just ******* bursts with starshine
And the beating of his heart is a melody sung by the highest angel
You wrote about Zeus
'Cause all your life you've been treated like ****
And you just wanted to feel something other than pain
And the sound of your father’s voice calling you weak and worthless and
It just hurts so much, doesn’t it?

I packed a suitcase full of your favorite books
And those green pens you always tuck behind you ear
I took you to Paris then Venice then Spain
You looked happy, I think
Most especially in the spaces between the seconds

You painted a picture of me
Using the words
"Hurricane" and "Torrential" and "Catastrophic"
But I know now that that is how you say I love you

You caught raindrops on your palm
And pretended it was Aphrodite’s tears
And you drank it with a broken kind of need

You wrote about Zeus
'Cause all your life you've been treated like ****
I wrote about Apollo

And the way my world revolves around him
You will never know that I wrote about you
And I’ve always been writing about you

"Please stop tapping out messages in Morse Code. I can’t understand it" I once said
But now I know that that is how you say I love you

Thought I'd try writing about honesty and transparency
Because I can't seem to stop turning desperate truths into lies
Maybe it's cause saying
"I don't need the warmth from somebody else's voice"
Sounds better than
"I cry myself to sleep every night"

My body is a patchwork of bruises, scars and jagged pieces that don't fit quite right
My mind is a ****** tapestry woven with threads drenched in hurricane waters

The day I was born a typhoon made a war zone out of my city  
An earthquake shook its very foundations as I came out kicking and screaming
Since my first breath I've been looking for a fight
The world never did disappoint

Time and time again the world has thrown punches straight to my face
And left open gashes where most mothers placed kisses
The world has stabbed me in the chest over and over 'til the ache felt like a part of me

I wear my scars like a coat of armor
I hold my head high and proud
And try to ignore the fact the every breath hurt

I believed I was indestructible and maybe there was a time you thought yourself unbreakable too
But I still hold on to my delusions as tightly as I can
With bleeding hands that refuse to let go

I refuse to let go

I am a force of nature and pain has been etched into my veins
I am unstoppable
I am a roaring inferno
Nobody can take that away from me

It is the way you bite your bottom lip when you're reading something you can't understand

It is the way you your voice gets softer when you feel like you're saying something stupid

It is the way you tap your fingers on your arm when you get nervous

It is the smell of your cologne

It is the way your eyes light up and how the smile on your face never leaves when you're talking about something you love

It is the way you look with a necktie

It is your hair when it is disheveled

It is the (adorable) way you avoid puddles when it's raining out

It is the way your hand always ends up in mine and how my eyes can't stop memorizing every inch of you

You try and you try and you try
And it doesn't change a ******* thing
Then you blame yourself and you blame yourself and you blame yourself
And wonder what could have been

You told me to write into the dark spaces
Because that's where the good stuff is at
But how can I when I am terrified of the darkness
How can I when I sleep with the light on

To write from the gutter to the pavements to the rooftops to the high heavens above
To **** whoever we want to love
To let the ink flow whichever way it wants to flow be it up or down
Or to the direction of the city sound
To spray obscenities in bathroom stalls and government walls
To wear nothing at all
To sing songs bout a woman loving another woman in her philosophy class
with long locks and red lips and a huge ***
To read books bout smoking cigarettes in the summer air
About sticking flowers into our hair
To drink ***** till everything is on fire
To look into the President's eyes and shout LIAR YOU ******* LIAR
To get tattoos of dead revolutionaries and their lovers
Who ****** them on top of city maps and uprising plans and table covers
To make art out of abandoned houses and dried up lakes  
To build jailhouses for all the fakes
To shout and sing and **** and write and paint and live as we wish
To go sleeping only when life has run out of bliss

I like the early mornings
When you're not as guarded
When your walls come down
At least for a little while
I like it when you're like this
With your adorable bed hair
And pillow creases imprinted on your cheek
And glasses placed haphazardly on the bridge of your nose
I like it when you're like this
Smiling softly at me
(With crinkly eyes
And blushing cheeks)
Open and honest and trusting
I like it when you're like this
Because I know that when you smile
You smile for no one else but me

If you cry inside your bedroom
And there is nobody around to hear you
Do you still make a sound?

You are at the foot of your bed
The pieces of a broken mirror
Surrounding you like makeshift stars
You build yourself a galaxy to drown in
And maybe you cried for salvation
Or maybe you cried out of pain
Or maybe you cried on the ****** chance
That someone will hear

You are at the foot of your bed
The claw marks on your chest
Making you look more savage than ever
You howl at the moon
But it is so dark
And the sky is so vast
And the moon was never there to begin with

You are at the foot of your bed
And you know
That your house was built on thin walls
And you keep waiting for
A knock on the door
Or a voice telling you to stop
Or any indication that someone heard you
And you know, oh you know
It's never gonna come

If you cry inside your bedroom
And there is nobody around to hear you
Do you still make a sound?

Does it matter?
You are still alone

Flowers wilt
Knuckles bleed
Friends leave
And the sun never shines
As bright as we make it out
To be

Buildings burn
Pavements crack
Cathedrals are abandoned
And we all lose
Something
That we can never get back

Vases break
Toys break
Cars break
Hearts break
And people
People break

We are taught that
The universe tends
to disorder

We are taught
To face
The inevitability
Of our collapse

We are taught that
In the end
Nothing remains
Sacred
Or holy

We are taught that
In the end
Nothing remains
Unbroken
Or whole

We are taught that
In the end
Nothing
Remains

Laying next to you
On the pavement
Watching you count the cars
Rushing mere
Millimeters away from us
I realized there is a god
Just not the god
Everyone keeps on talking about

I don't think god has
White flowing robes
And clouds at his feet

I can see god
Drinking hot cocoa
When his apartment
Feels a little too big
Because it reminds him
Of home

I can see god
Buying pink peonies
To put on his father's grave
Every first Thursday
Of the month
Because Thursday
Was his favorite day

I closed my eyes
For a split second
I saw the face of god
And darling,
it looked a lot like yours

The first time I tried ****** I was looking for an act of defiance
I was hanging a glowing neon sign on my chest that screamed *******
Man, I swear James Dean shot it up my arm
He had a tattoo on his wrist and it said, it said
Rebel without a cause
And those four words pretty much summed me up
I was 17
I still do not know who I was raising my middle fingers at

It took me 18 months
Of unanswered phone calls
And careful avoidance
To get over you

It took me 18 seconds
Of staring at your smile
To realize
That I never got over you

1.)
I hid my heart in a concrete box
Without any holes or openings
Where sunlight can seep through
And my heart didn't know
That there was something out there
Other than darkness

2.)
I hid my heart in a concrete box
And locked it as tight as I could
I swallowed the key
Now I think it is stuck
Somewhere inside my chest
Because there is an ache right there
And it hurts to breathe

3.)
I hid my heart in a concrete box
And buried it beneath
The center of my left palm
I have spent countless hours
Staring at my hand
And wondering why
It was bruised and bleeding

4.)
I hid my heart in a concrete box
Without holes or openings
I locked it as tight as I could
And buried it beneath
The center of my palm
Thinking it would be safer that way
Thinking that nothing can hurt me that way

I hid my heart in a concrete box
In time it had suffocated

I never noticed that it was beating
Until it stopped

We get drunk together so many times this bottle of ***** doesn't taste right without you

You said my poetry was dense and pretentious
And I swear I heard my heart crash to the ******* floor

3 weeks ago I would have said that
Your lips are heaven and your hands are art
But now I know that your mouth
Is a toxic weapon of mass destruction
And your slender fingers
Are shotguns that you never meant to fire

I'm not gonna lie
I miss you the way leaves miss the branches they have fallen from
I miss you the way the wind misses dandelion seeds to scatter
And I miss you the way abandoned roads miss the sound of footsteps

But I cannot tell you how glad I am
To have lost you

I've never been good at differentiating want from need all I can say is that being without you makes it hard for me to breathe

I am drowning in words
Words with shaky hands and wide open mouths
Eternally screaming into the infinite sky
Their hands turning into fists in violent ecstasy
Hands with veins thrumming to the beat of life
Like the rhythmic hum of the sidewalk singer’s throat
The night is still and silent
A blanket of hush trying to swallow it whole
But the window is open and the streetlights are open
My ******* heart is open
And the sound of the earth is crashing into me
There are words bouncing off the walls
Ripping off plastic smile photographs and cut out posters
Trying to rid me of what I thought I was and what I thought I want to be
Filling my insides with a fiery something
Like I just drunk burning water and my ***** mouth is craving for more
On every corner of the room and on every inch of my skin
There are letters and syllables and fragments in messed up writing
Piling up in to mountains and oceans and ******* galaxies

I am drowning in words
And the lack of oxygen has never tasted so sweet

I think I've stopped being human long ago. I am a ghost of who I used to be. The ghost of a person who laughed at the sky and danced with the sea and believed that things always get better. But it's been two years and it hasn't gotten better. And I'm starting to think it never will. I can't bring you back. I can't turn back time. I can't stop that yellow cab from slamming into your chest. I swear I would have moved heaven and hell if you wanted me to. I still put out 2 sets of plates and forks and spoons everyday, did you know? I threw out our bed because it just kept reminding me that you aren't here and you will never be here again. There is a continuous ache in my chest and a hole in my heart in the shape of you that no amount of alcohol can ever fill. People say that if you drink enough ***** it tastes like love. That is complete and utter *******. ***** tastes like crying on the floor at 3 am and smashing every glass at home and pain pain pain. You were my home and you left me. I ******* love you and you left me. I know it isn't your fault but **** sometimes it sure does feel that way.

We could swim to the middle of the ocean

And let the tides pull us down under
Fighting not against it
Until you are drowning with the certainty
That we were made for breathing

We could swim to the middle of the ocean

And let the waves slam into our chests again and again
Struggling not against them
Til the oxygen has run from our lungs
And you gasp to reclaim it

I want to write something worth reading
But my eyelids are heavy
And my hands aren't steady
And anything worth writing
Will still be written

I didn't "fall" in love with you
Because the word "fall"" makes it sound like it was some sort of accident
Makes it sound like it was some random mishap
Like I was walking on the street
Like I tripped over nothing
Like I "fell" into an open manhole and scraped my knobby knees
Like I didn't see what I was getting into
Like I didn't choose this
Like I didn't choose you
Because I jumped into love with you
I had my eyes opened wide and even then
There was nothing else in my field of vision but you
I had my arms opened so wide so that I could hold all the parts of you
Even the parts that you choke down day by day
I had my heart opened so wide because I wanted you
To make a home out of it
Because I jumped into love with you
But sometimes I feel like I shouldn't say that
I jumped into love "with" you
Because the word "with" makes it sound like we did it together
Like you held my hand tight enough to leave imprints of your fingerprints
Like you wrapped me in your warmth and never let the cold seep through to my lips
Like you jumped with me too
Like you said "I'm in love you"
But you didn't
So maybe I'll just say that
I jumped into love because of you
Or maybe
I jumped into a crushing abyss of pain and despair because of you
Whichever of those two
They're basically the same anyway

There is gold on the ceiling
Dripping down my forehead to my lips
It burns; it burns the way I think
The sun burns when it's 6 pm
And the city's skyline looks like a streak of fire

Blue wraps around my body like a pair of arms, stranger's arms
Making me shiver from the heat I can't feel
Cause my skin is made of dusty old newspapers
Yet my bones are made of steel

But there is gold on the ceiling
And it's so bright, it's so **** bright
Like a burst of hot light it blinds me
Searing the image of glittering dust into my brain
I can't remember

Red flows out of my mouth like a waterfall
My words sound like knives stuck in ribcages
My throat is filled with blood because it hurts to speak
It hurts even more to stop

But there is gold on the ceiling
Shining like every promise of "better"
It's shining and blinding and burning
Stabbing me again and again
With the force of it's glory

There is gold on the ceiling
But there is black on the walls
So I close my eyes tight
Cause dark is all I've ever known

Let me tell you something:
Your sadness isn't beautiful and it will never be beautiful
All it is is destructive and my god it will burn you down in the worst possible ways

It will burn you down 'til your fingers start setting fire to everything you touch
'Til your insides are ablaze with the heat of self-hate
'Til your very soul is turned into a raging forest fire that kills anything alive

It will burn you down and it will make you want to bleed out
From your wrist and neck and head and that is not beauty

That is a catastrophe

My heart was crawling up my throat and out of my mouth
And I never thought to swallow it down
So I let it spill out in the form of "I'm falling in love with you"
Except that I didn't
Because my words crumbled to dust before they even escaped the cavern of my lips
He put his hand over my mouth
Before I can even let the word love trip off my tongue

And he told me to stop
I swear even the earth stood still on its axis
And he told me to stop
He said he couldn't handle it
And he told me to stop
I wanted to laugh and then wanted to cry
Because there I was shaking
With blood in my mouth
Bruises around my neck and wounds in my chest
And I could see why he'd say he couldn't handle it
But ******* I wanted him to try

I was holding my heart in my palms as a series of earthquakes hit my hands
And it would have hurt a lot less
If he said he did not want it
Or that he couldn't give a rat's *** about the pathetic mess that has become me
But he said he couldn't handle it
And I know, I know that
Love is a pretty heavy concept
But he has shouldered boulders and tsunami tides and entire planets in the past

He told me he couldn't handle it
And I tell myself that love is a pretty heavy concept
But a voice at the back of my mind says
"If he wanted to, if he really wanted you, he would try. He could handle it."