Doors slam,
voices are shrill,
this is home.

We are family.
and in our gathering,
we pick each other apart.

The vultures wait at our doorstep,
fed with our torn apart egos,
and tears preserved in mason jars.

We are family,
and we knock each other down,
we are home.

Go ahead,
                  bite me.

I’m sure you will hate the taste

   of this mess you’ve made

I have all this scratching
and leaking
at the edges of my mind
that I know I can’t fight off
forever.

Sometimes people lose
their subconscious drive to try
all at once
in one day
and just go crazy,
but then I think
my most alluring thought
of all
is that I can't wait
for it to happen
to me.

1; Every time I think hard about a theoretical concept, the rest of my thought processes become out of focus, like on a camera, and I find it hard to speak in regular conversation as that fades.

2; I think dark blood is beautiful, but light red looks too much like small talk.

3; As you can probably tell, people make me feel like I'm drowning in a foreign sea.

waxy lips tight veins purple blotched skin
trembling heartbeats and the words of witches, long dead gardens of vines
a reason to hope and a cause for guilt
coughing up the flimsiest of thoughts and broken teeth
what a dream, what a life
if you died tomorrow, what would you do today? (i would die today)
you should know about the incisions of your words along my ribs
i taste blood on your tongue when I kiss you, red stained hands are of no concern
you ripped words from my lungs while i choked on the arm down my throat
“look how beautiful you are” you whisper with fingers twisting my hair
you pried out the poems I kept clenched between my teeth while I sobbed
“you’re killing yourself, don’t you know I love you?” a smirk plays on your face
you didn’t stop for pleasantries, you pulled symphonies straight through my flesh, you made me a slaughterhouse
“you’ve done it again” you raise an eyebrow as a chuckle escapes your prison bar lips
is it my fault that the only remaining verses are doused in gore?

when did refrigerator magnet words go so wrong? this is not last chance saving this is a parody of myself
what were once declarations of love have morphed into razor edged lines and sharp angles that catch along the back of my throat
i choke them out but they mutate into something much more than I have anticipated, these are not the smooth sing-song lyrics you fell in love with, these are death sentences and suicide letters and homicidal tendencies
this is crooked iron nails and bitterly spat broken teeth and torn pages from notebooks, this is not beautiful, it is teasing the very edge of the cliff with bare feet
a white flag rubbed in mud and creased with dried blood is not surrender, whether raised or crushed under the heels of tearing boots you’ve come to love.
you don’t hate poetry, you say you do. you flinch when it touches you, scalding on your skin, leaving blisters up your sides.
you don’t hate poetry, you get so much pleasure from picking at the wounds it inflicts.
is this a desperate hunger, a strictly guarded act of autocannibalism,
preying on late night words (“i honestly hate her and i want to forget” oh, drink your sorrows away honey, you have a hell of a storm coming for you)
no one can tell me the facts, not anymore, not through voicemails smelling of cigarette smoke or misspelled texts declaring undying love,
these words leave fragile skin with claw marks, innocent blush with burns
this is danger, this is terrorism (an act on whom? is it terrorism if one is after themself?)
honey, you know it’s the stress talking, the best medicine is to let it bleed until you’re numb

me, dormant still breath under sheets
this is not what they taught you about volcanoes, you of late nights and ###### tear away words
of jitters and shivers and shaking rattling tombstone dreams and me, fingers strong and clenched into thick skin and veins and those places they’re buried
me, tight muscles needing a lesson on letting go, overreactions of all proportions
me, calculating the velocity of a fall from my bedroom window
me, calculating the velocity of a fall that would **** me
me; me, dead on the ground outside your ####### window how about that would you cry or would you kiss my cold lips or would you rip my ribs from my chest because that’s what I would do
and this is the part where you apologize and say you still love me, and this is the part where i destroy your tissue paper skin and wipe my hands on my worn jeans, and this is the part where you grab the words from the back of my throat that had no intentions of showing their ***** faces and tack them on telephone poles
you, a face in the crowd
me, six feet under ground