here’s to the days it seems as though love is hiding in plain sight. a forgotten warmth, promising all things to be whispered behind nervous palms underneath the moon. the question is written inside her eyes clear as day, a flash of hurt crossing their bridge when she’s pushed to the distant regions of his mind for another. roses are her favorite flower and maybe he’s not one for clichés. the streets are empty now, the distance between them measured in trees. but their branches still do not cross.

mascara stained cheeks
and ripped fishnet
stockings, smoke
drifting out cherry
lips as the stars laugh
above her tired mind,
she loves him,
she loves him not,
she wants him,
but no-
no she does not

sort of in doubt of my progress every time i hear a tired sigh, watch a pair of eyes roll upward, try to ignore the whispers in the dark late at night. it seems like the weight of this body is catching up to me all at once, holding me down in an iron fist of the unknown. my pen runs dry and my fingertips bleed ink and the corner of my bedroom is my favorite spot to shut my eyes and sleep. my limbs are heavy, these aching parts begging to be freed. ghosts eat away at my brain like gray poison, but i can never ******* scare them away.

please speak to me in a series
of sentences beloved + passionate,
this temporary oasis settling
into our curves and bones,
3 little words forcing a way out
from behind grinding teeth,
and the velvet of honesty
upon our hearts not shown.

she learned as a kid to dress her burns with dignity and to bury her nose inside books to mask a sinking loneliness. but as she grew up, so did the rest of the world surrounding her. and she found that reading could not manage to heal every hurt that blossomed on fragile skin. some wounds were meant to be rubbed in salt. these realizations came quietly, a blade slowly creeping up against ones throat. and the fear of unwavering change settled into the pit of her belly like a sapling, forming bruises and ruin over aging scars.

in the darkness i lie,
thoughts breaking down
my door and bringing
stolen images and
memories with them-
(all of that hopeless
blue boy)
because sometimes
i wish i could go back
to the exact moment when
it all started and cut him
out of my timeline in
completion-our existences
growing apart as regret
lessens her grip with a
new course of fate while
the months blur on by-
but i’m still continuing
forward, on a single lined
path that will only cease
with my breath, for sorrow
still knows how to choke up
my throat with a sudden
rememberance at dawn, the
dream still lingering around
the sides of my head like
poison-ignoring the pain from
past faults and struggling not
to want the sound of his soft sighs
with hungry lips pressed up gently
against my ears once more