Stay.
Accept my imperfections.
I will do anything for you.
I need you.
I need your soul.
I need your mind.
I need your heart.
I need your pain.
I need your tears.
I need you next to me .
Why can't you forgive me for not letting go.
I forgave you for not holding on.

I wonder if you’d want to know
I named all of my demons after you and
they haunt me in my sleep

when I was 14 I fell asleep in April and dreamed of bones and
I’m not sure I’ve really ever woken up since

when I lost 5 pounds I never saw a difference

when I lost 10 my mother said I was looking good

when I lost 20 she told me to stop and handed me food
and I became anemic

when I lost 25 I stopped drinking anything because
I felt water had calories

when I lost 30 my mother held me on her lap
and held my bones together for me

when I lost 35 I started fainting every morning and
the doctors could no longer easily find my blood pressure

when I lost 40 people started to stare and food made me cry

when I lost 45 it hurt to walk and to lay down
it hurt to eat
it hurt to breathe and
I started throwing up my empty stomach

the mind plays tricks on those that decide
nourishment is not needed

Eat.

I had a dream again.
A lovely one, with all but lust.
And yet I could feel everything.

I fell asleep in your arms, my skin on yours.
And a smile remained through the night.

I woke up this morning thinking of you,
And I searched for you in my sheets.
Then I realized.... I was a fool.

Making love in the sun, in the morning sun
in a hotel room
above the alley
where poor men poke for bottles;
making love in the sun
making love by a carpet redder than our blood,
making love while the boys sell headlines
and Cadillacs,
making love by a photograph of Paris
and an open pack of Chesterfields,
making love while other men- poor folks-
work.
That moment- to this. . .
may be years in the way they measure,
but it's only one sentence back in my mind-
there are so many days
when living stops and pulls up and sits
and waits like a train on the rails.
I pass the hotel at 8
and at 5; there are cats in the alleys
and bottles and bums,
and I look up at the window and think,
I no longer know where you are,
and I walk on and wonder where
the living goes
when it stops.

If you were a book
I would stay up all night
Feverishly flipping pages
Soaking up every single syllable
To know your ending

If you were a tropical island
I would explore your lush, secret interior
Spending long, lazy afternoons naked
Sun drunk on your shores

If you were a ***** joke
I would throw my cackles to the ceiling
Careful to not burst windows
Making sure to retell you often
Your punch line only gets better

If you were a roller coaster
I would wait in line for half the day
Just to be caressed by your safety harness soaked in other's sweat
Not to mention your talent with G-spots, I mean forces

If you were early morning
I would brew you strong and extra hot
Sipping cautiously at your porcelain edges
Watching blue smoke lazily curl
Then taking deep gulps as you cool
Buzzed on you til the afternoon

If you were mine
I would fill up your long dried and crusted ink wells
Encourage your laughter to come out to play
But above all
I would love you. Madly.

As far as people go I would say I'm not the best.
My emotions are far too volatile,
and I'm much too fallible.

I often feel that I'm falling to pieces,
I'm too codependent so I wait for people to fix me
(which never happens)

My writing is too emotional,
it has no structure,
its only purpose is to make sense of myself.

I'm a mess,
I'll confess that.

At least I know who I am,
accept myself for all of my flaws,
and take another step forward.

I tried to be stone so I would be invincible to anything that came my way.

I wouldn't sway with the wind like tree branches do, or uproot completely when gale force winds blow through.

I wouldn't burn at the touch or fire and crumble into charred black dust.

I wouldn't freeze over in the snow, even if it covered me whole.

Mother Nature has nothing on your hands though;

You came at me with a chisel and hammer and decided to carve into my granite veins again and call me your personal masterpiece.

You carved yourself a niche in my stature and made me into someone dented by your meticulous hands.

You cut jagged edges and smoothed them round, ******* at every detail and feeling for bumps to smooth away.

I made myself stone so you couldn't get into me, not even if you tried.

Yet here we are with my carved heart and your worn chisel and hammer by your side.

You hit a little too hard this time and the cracks have already formed;

I can feel the wind blow through me and the snow settle into the cracks just waiting for the fire to melt it.

Someday you'll put the chisel and hammer down because working at stone like me is tiresome.

That, and by the end of all this I'll be broken stone around your feet.

Artists finish their pieces, and you finished me by hitting too hard and cracking me completely.

I still have scars left,
from all the times you injected your essence into my veins