just stay with me forever and read this
writing on my walls s l o w l y without a single
pause.
here is where the meaning lies,
in someone else’s train of words.

there’s no one quite like you,
angel bones and raw beauty with a
perceptivity like something foreign.

i’ll listen; your words follow me like
lost ships to phantom harbors.
you are the tides coaxing in the sea.
maybe someday, I’ll tell you
every/thing.

here in the une ve n silences between lines,
i don’t have to be perfect; you don’t care,
and that has made
all the difference.

I wear a bodysuit of glass and blades,
plucking at my shrunken skin.
for every time he howls,
shattering cries,
I am torn.

here is the secret
no one knows: my bones show through.
beneath the whispers of cotton and muscle,
this girl is an empty vessel,
slowing, submissive, sinking,
the depths, constant calling,
it would be so necessary
to let go.

the lone wolf growling in my belly,
sharp teeth scraping at
the carcass of skin
and bone.

nothing will deaden
his hunger; I don’t know
what he wants,
so I give him
everything,
my skeleton, in
sacrificial offering
so that one of us
will be satisfied,
so that I will
be enough.
& at last, I am
home.

sometimes, a kiss is not just a kiss.  sometimes, it tastes like absolution & leaves fires of desire burning in its aftermath.  i wrote in my journal that i loved you on october ninth.  three weeks before i was brave enough to actually confess that to you.  that night, you held me with your whole body & i loved you with my longing limbs.  that night, you left my eyes wet & wanting because finally, there was you.

& now there is you & i cling manic to your delicate frame.  our fingers make love every time they entwine.  you kiss me tongue deep, whisper your love into my neck, & i forget how to hate myself a little more each time.  the number on the scale is a great unknown, but i am not afraid, not when you touch me urgently with such tenderness & stroke my stomach.

all i need is you & i will give the best of myself.  put down the liquor & the cigarettes that only serve to **** me quicker.  smash the mirrors with my fists & look to my reflection in the glow of your eyes instead  to see that i am beautiful.  with you, i do not need to carve myself into something worth loving.  with you, all i want to feel is love.  & my god, all i want to have is you.

anxiety: my heart wakes me up, tattooing irregular beats against
my ribs, pulse racing, breath shaking.  i cannot tell
if this is real or psychosomatic.  these days,
i think about death all the time,
no longer by suicide.  now, i am
an accident waiting to happen,
fragile from years of misuse &
neglect.  the shallow inhales
of my lungs tell me
i am not okay.

depression:  this is a gray day.  i swallow my meds even though
they take away my mania.  so i drink black coffee until my mind
races itself in circles, chasing its tail like a rabid dog.
i keep the razors hidden in my sock drawer,
just in case.  

anorexia: my ribs ****** forward from my skin again, the sharp
protrusion of my bones beginning to show through.  i am eating
but drinking my weight in water
& mainlining caffeine to keep my metabolism high & my weight
low.  i am still child-sized & i don't want to grow.  
they lift me easily with their arms & marvel
at my featherweight body.  
the compliments i get only make me
eat less.

self-harm: on the days when i am low, i trace
the silver stretch of scars scattered over my skin
with a yearning for a blade between my fingers
just one last time.  i swear to you, the bleeding is over,
but i need to know
i am still brave
enough
to hold a sharp edge against my flesh
& press down,
hard.

addiction: a month ago,
i downed four adderall in one sitting,
luxuriating in the heady rush & lack of pain,
the quiet & the calm.
when i lived at home, i stole
my mother's vicodin & took the whole bottle.
i'm not sorry.  
when the boy who only cared about ******* me
offered mdma for free,
i accepted, but i shouldn't have trusted him
to keep me safe,
blacking out on his kitchen
floor.
drink red wine to forget
my insecurity, inhale
thick, sweet smoke to feel
some semblance of happy,
drag on cigarettes
down to their filters
until i feel properly
alive.

all i want is to be better, but
where to begin?

sigmund freud believed we all carry within ourselves
a suicide impulse, some
strange & counter-evolutionary desire
to return to that moment
of perfect, untainted stillness
before birth.

i don't know if i agree, but
i know enough to know
i want to feel that quiet
instead of the voices
in my head.

you don't need to give me more reasons
to pick myself apart; i never said
i was perfect.  
you don't need to point out
the flaws i already hate myself for.

the truth is this: i have found someone
who makes me feel like me again,
who i will expose myself to,
in uncompromised vulnerability,
& who will love every bit of ugly,
who will make me better.

my lungs do not know how to be lungs,
i am becoming bones again,
the scars on my wrists threatening to arise
as fresh again..

i have never once thought myself good enough
& now he is teaching me how to believe
just that.  everything else is falling
beneath me; it is all a ball & chain
around my ankles,
while your words rail through me,
bullets giving me just one more reason
to bleed again.

these tears are not for you,
i am not for you,
i am trying to be better,
& please, just let me fight
the urge to seek that silence
without giving me another reason
to throw myself
headlong down
the rabbit
hole.

up & away floats my red balloon heart
      lifted
lightened &        (when) you kiss me feverish, the spring flowers
crushed beneath (our) bare feet & i think this must be the price
to the universe paid for love so sweet & so unrelenting, darling, you are
the stillest of seas after storms have swept past, the softest
lips i have ever touched my body
your body & be gentle with me:
in your arms is some kind of otherworld, the dis joint ed
passing of time
bothtooquick and  f a r  t o o  s l o w but i am left always quite wanting
more & we become galaxies
when the lights go out, starlit & desperate for expansion
from the confines of our selves so, o love of mine, let us
mudddy the space between you & i
with uncharted exploration.  a poetry of flesh on
flesh & i will lay you down tonight.

the blue-black night danced over our bodies, the moonlight waltzed in through your car windows. i tremble to the rhythm of your breath as you learn my legs with urgent fingers.  as your skin adheres to mine, i feel the wanting electric coursing in currents through the rush of my blood.  we are a tangle of killer chemistry & searching mouths.  so you bite my bottom lip & that is so ******* rad.  our clothes are nothing but pretext.  there is no stopping the way you puzzle piece me together.  your every touch is an absolution & i want it all.  the wind shakes free the dying leaves & we sing each other lullabies with fiery kisses.