let’s play truth or dare.
so we can mouth a hundred hymns at each other then remember
that we
are the only things we believe in.
i want to whisper in your ear
say how i think
that the first person made a thousand sounds and called them gods
and named them all after you.
nobody has ever been so beginning.

tell me back.
how you love the ash you find in between the pages of my favourite books,
i want to know that i’m here, cigarette burns and all.
i know we are both missing and that’s okay because nothing is whole.

have you ever wanted to become a straight line?
have you ever wanted to learn every single freckle?
name them with your teeth?
taste them under your tongue?
i have never been more silhouette, more oil on water,
more ‘please don’t leave’.

i have tasted your smoke under my tongue.
i have wanted to turn myself into a whisper,
i have breathed your name at the back of my throat.

i tell you
a girl is a safe place you can make yourself to shake in.
a body is something you can grow into,
or out of.
when the door is closed and you say that you’re home,
i hope you know what that means.
i hope you hold that weight to your chest.

i say ”i hope you come back soon.”
she says “ring me when you’re home safe.”

When you died, I was the last to know.
You lived on in my mind and soul.
You were a force that could not simply go.
Your memory was enough to keep me whole.

I grasp your casket,
Had all my eggs in one basket.
I didn't fear the fall,-
nor time stopping still
I could not hope to see over that hill|
To see that life without you is a slow crawl.

Your body rots with my soul.
You have died and left only no.
You were once all -- but now are a hole.
When I breathe again, your memory will go.

You couldn't love yourself
So you wouldn't let me love you

There are four words better than
I love you
And those are
*I'm here to stay

he’s telling me about the girl at school
he can’t get out of his head,
and how he feels like
it’s always this chain of
"i don’t want all these people that want me,"
(i winced)
“and the one person i want doesn’t want me
in the same way.”
(i inhaled sharply)

i told him he’s overthinking it,
and when he asked, “how do you not?”
(i forgot to breathe)

my eyes got watery, but i blinked quickly
before they could settle
(i exhaled)

and replied,
“i'll let you know.”

I gave you the stars in my eyes
The light in my heart.

You gave me **nothing.

'Young lady, why is your poetry so dark?'
I don't know good sir, it's probably because I have my insides at war.