Dripping peach juice down our chins,
chasing each other in the fiery sunset.

Veins popping out of your arms
begging something I couldn't quite make out....

You would draw me.
Charcoal.
My body blown up on the big screen,
my curves soft like the smoke you were blowing out of your mouth.

The ***** videos,
followed by the sweet ones,
the ones with the sun in my hair,
our laughter electric as we fell down the rabbit hole.

The spray paint we dropped on the roof
as we ran from the sirens in the distance.

Electric, electric, you are my electricity.
No one can catch us if we float on air.

You said
"will you be my girl, will you be bad for me?"
And I slid down the slide, my legs scraping the mulch.
"For you babe. And you only."

The curve of your spine against my arm.
The freckles on your back,
the fine hairs on your neck pressing into my lips.
The warmth.
The light coming through the blinds,
your face illuminated.

You throwing up under the streetlights,
windows fogged, sleepy eyes saying:
cmon love lets just make it home.
Everything is gonna be okay, the police are gone..
Cut your losses, let's make it home.

Christmas trees in bay windows,
we watched them jingle.

I would leave love letters under your pillow,
in your car, whisper them to you as you drove.

Magic.
You're a magic man.

And in your boxes- your hidden treasures..
I would stare at them until you set me under another spell..

Your dark hair wrapped up in my fingers..
Another sunset.

Asleep in the back of your jeep,
in the middle of the woods,
river water burning my throat.
Listening to you *****-
always vomiting,
always kissing.

Peach juice dripping.

I am growing faster than the grass
that covers our front lawn and somehow
I only need more affection.

I am often in tears after 4 pm.
I stay in my room wishing for things.

You might throw a question my way,
do not be offended when I stumble down
the dark hallway.

Do not be alarmed when I wear the same shirt for 3 days
and do not tell me I am beautiful.

Listen to me when I tell you I am not in the right body.
My whole life no one has believed me.

I only wanted to be perceived as worthless for three years,
I don’t know how you overcome that.

I don’t know how I’m still alive.
A lot of times I see myself as invincible.

How I wish I was not.
I get tired when the sun comes up,
and when it goes down.

I will die in less than ten years,
so all that I have strived for will be for nothing.
I will die in nine years and one month.

I know why my caged soul sings.
I’ve been digging my grave since birth.

I was born backwards,
racing towards something over the horizon.

I cry in the morning.
I hold myself a lot.

Some days I wake up blind.
Some days I want to carve my poetry into my veins.

I wish I was never born
and I wish you died in a fire.
I wish you never moved here from Chicago.

At 14 I cracked the veil and I went crazy.
I think there’s something wrong with me.

I think there’s something WRONG WITH ME.
I told you my secret
and you called me insane.

I wish you drowned in a bathtub as a child
I wish you had ugly eyes
I wish you got hit by a car
I wish I shot you in the head
I wish I shot you dead
I’m a sick girl
My head is coughing

My heart has a virus the doctors have no cure for
They stand over me with medicine
That I already know will not help me
I think there are worms in my intestines
I think my skin is rotting
My blood is turning to sewage

Do I smell yet?
I think I belong in a hospital

He said:
"let's pretend you don't come in waves of blue hair and mystery."  

Lets take these shots so you can be a bad girl for me.
And I stood there toeing a half empty beer can
with my beat up boots thinking
"what the **** dude?"

He said I want to get to know you,
I want to see if what they say is true.
I look up through the smoke and the lights and the crowd
and tell you "It is".

And this excites him. "Oh yeah baby I know what you are".

"What am I? I thought was nothing but a blue haired mystery, an enigma, a presence to be desired...",
and he leans in to me, his gin soaked breath in my ear:

"You love, are a ******* temptress."

So now I have been reduced to all damsel all lust all distress.
Those stupid princes never stop to wonder
if the pretty face in the tower even wants to be rescued.

Cause babe, I never asked to be saved.

Cause maybe I have built these walls to keep men like you out.
Or maybe I just wanted to have the chance to
invite you in on my own terms.

Maybe I just wanted to be able to escort you out.
This has never been my prison, this is my tower.
My legacy.

You and your reckless abandon made me feel beautiful.
I felt like Christmas lights in October,
still shining bright, still hung.

And one day,
as you held me softly in your arms,
you told me you loved me.

I was the only real "family" you had left.
On account of your father chopping up your mother and all.

Told me you loved me,
the words I've always wanted to hear,
the words I have made my tongue bleed on,
the words I have broken my jaw with trying to keep
them from coming out.

You told me we will never get married.
Told me to get a boyfriend,
and when I shook my head and said I "don't like anyone" ,
you grabbed my hair in your fist and kissed me,
your wet tongue sliding into my warm mouth.

"Ah, little one. But you like me."

I see you like I would see my father,
you see me like a little sister,
like a young girl half your age you can protect,
can kiss on the head,
can hold close.

A girl you can **** from behind, your fingers in my mouth.
A 19 to your 38.

A girl you introduce as "I see her as a little sister"
while you have my scent on your thighs.
A girl you can never marry, but oh god, do you love her.

You told him, with 70 pounds of high grade marijuana on the table: "This is my little girl gone gangster.
I'm leaving for a while but she's holding down my game.
Treat her right and she'll do you the same."

And I will.

In truth, I love to love you and I live to love you.

And I'll take your ***** type of ****** love over not having you.

I was strewn out over the covers on your bed.
You were criss-cross on the carpet,
your long legs straining against the fabric of your jeans.

We caught each others glance and held it as the seconds,
then minutes went by.

You were the first to speak:
"If you ever look at me like that again,
I will ****** you.
I know what you were thinking."

I laughed,then asked you what you meant;
how did you know what was in my head?

You said-
"You were looking at me like,
what the **** did I ever see in you?
How was I ever so foolish?
I wasted all my time on him ?"

And I laughed again, slowly, then quickly.

That was never what crossed my mind.

But it's what I'm thinking now.

My moonlight girl is sleeping.

She finds me in my daydreams,
she creeps in and quickly leaves me.

She tells me she loves me- while I am unconscious.

I haven't heard her but I can read it in the smoke she leaves.

I can feel it in the wet lust that hangs in the air,
the sweet dew evaporating from my thighs.

I miss her when she is waking.

I am Eve in the garden of Eden and
now I can finally see why she bit into the apple.

I am swallowing it whole.

You are a slithering slippery snake with a pretty disguise and
you are leaving marks on my neck and bruises in my brain.

You are breaking my bones in your tight coil,
and every morning I find myself again,
in your nest,
shaking scales out of my hair.