I'll wear your coffin with pride 
Tattoo my lips with your touch 
Burn for the jealousy in your eyes
I'll handle you with this knife
To cut these wrists 
I shed my skin peeled away from the bone
Days like this I pull my nerves apart 
Grasping for your heart
To feel the beating of misanthropy
We lick the wounds from sapphire cuts

I know what you say
To me
It's like ashes from the sky
I know what you say
To me
It's like teething on denial

I've turned away from the light
You lit the room to bury this tomb
It's fulfilling to crash
We taste the burn on our ribs
Cutting our teeth on the nape of our necks
I can hear your breath on my ear
Suture these lies with rabid tongue
I feel you turn away
This hunger for you growls
Growing sick for your flesh

I know what you say
To me
It's like ashes from the sky
I know what you say 
To me
It's like teething on denial

I smile thru your taste
I hold your hand with my teeth
Bitterness, ravenous, aching
Carving into the full moon and
Late night dances at the graveyard
I crave to be near
The edge of your space
To push you away

I know what you say
To me
It's like ashes from the sky
I know what you say
To me
It's like teething on denial

I've felt a change
In me
Its like ashes from the sky
I've felt a change
In you
Its like teething on denial

Katherine writes songs about wheat fields and her father’s blisters
From the four-by-six closet beneath the staircase.
Aaron doesn’t write anymore.

Katherine draws music notes to record
The tune of footsteps and creaking oak,
While Aaron feels the rough grain of maple window frames
And avoids his reflection in the double-paned glass.

Katherine holds tight to her pen
Like a man who’s lived a good life holds on to his final breath.
Aaron, he never found it that hard to exhale.

Katherine knows love like she knows the Sun,
While Aaron, who once flew wax-winged,
Stopped studying mythology
And found trust in extinguished light bulbs.

Katherine draws stick figures in the collected dust
Of cracked-cloth book covers
And embraces every particle that kisses her fingerprint.
Aaron wears black leather gloves
Like a desensitizing second-skin.
But they both close their eyes
When the wind brushes their cheeks.

When Katherine cries it’s wet and sloppy
And when it’s over she usually giggles
At the feeling of being human.
Aaron’s eyes are desert moons;
If he believed in a god he’d pray for rainstorms,
But instead he picks tumble weeds from his teeth
With the ribcage he found when the vultures were through.

Katherine webs outlines with plot twists and foreshadows
While Aaron knows some stories
Are made up as they’re written.

Katherine collects crushed asphalt from both sides of divided highways
And mixes it with ****** wax to varnish her innocence.
Aaron drives the back-roads and keeps one eye on the rearview mirror.
He finds solace in sharp turns.

Tonight, Katherine curls her toes as she writes a song about
loving up until your very last breath
And caresses her lips.
Aaron chews on his and slides open the window.
They both recall the taste of someone else’s skin from the salt in the air.
Katherine’s candle flickers and pops when she moves
Her hand through the light to cast stories on the wall.
Aaron crawls down the shadowed side of hallways
And feels the grey grow in his hair as he starts up the staircase.

Step by step by step by
each breath is
step by step
loved a little bit less
An all but silent cacophony of creaking oak.

Katherine etches a treble clef but her pupils dilate
When she senses the unfamiliar feeling of a second heartbeat.
With stitched silk stockings
she tip-toes up the same song.
Aaron hears music for the first time in so long
And turns to see where goose bumps come from.

Katherine crescendos at the top of the stairs and
Stares into two full, bright desert moons.
Aaron finds it hard to let go of the breath it takes to say,
“Don’t be afraid.”
Katherine tumbles like fingers down piano keys,
But for a split-second in the moment their eyes met
They both forgot the weight of loneliness.

I've been waking up with jaw aches
Throbbing pains all through my teeth
And they told me it's a stress reaction
So calming down should bring relief
But how on earth could I be calm
When you're a *****, dogged thief?

Yes, you've stolen my attention
Snatched it tightly in your grasp
Roped your doting all around my neck
Clipped it up with Cupid's clasp
Laid my head on sultry promises
That leak poison like an asp

I've been eating up your venom
****** it down like Diet Coke
It's been pooling in my bloodstream
Since the first time that we spoke
Belaboring my breathing
Like determined, heady smoke

Yes, I'm finding you're quite toxic
But I can't resist this blight
Even though it makes my hands shake
And leaves me tossing through the night
Restless with the thoughts you gave me
And expecting no respite

I've been courting green-eyed monsters
Burning hot with jealous flares
Letting trivial words consume me
With their petty, jeering dares
Making messes with my mind games
And my overwhelming cares

Yes, you're making me quite anxious
And I really must confess
You've enthralled me so completely
With these feelings you profess
And though I try to block you out
I can't help but obsess

I've been hoping you would tell me
All the thoughts trapped in your mind
Because lately I've been guessing
Since your meanings aren't aligned
And I cannot yet determine
If your intentions are unkind

Yes, I'm hoping you're still feeling
How you did those years before
Though part of me can't take it
And another part's still sore
Because another part still craves you
And couldn't love you more

I can see the weight hanging from your soul
And I wonder if you knew what you were doing when you hung it there.
It tugs at the corners of your mouth
And when you smile, well, I can see it.
It glazes your eyes and I feel it inside myself.
You uncover happiness across your face,
But your shadow is darker than it should be
And I can only guess the weight hangs there as well.
It has covered you up, smothered you,
Painted you a shade that is not quite your own.
You never bargained for a life like this,
and though you press on down the path you’ve chosen,
I can see you turn your head, longingly,
Towards the past.
When you lay your bones down,
Do they ache like the soreness in your soul?
Let them breath, open to the night,
Soothed by the gentleness of time.

Tick.

The sun flicked and inch
She winced
Shadows flinched.
Their eyes met
Eons blinked
The Guardians of Instinct
Waves crashed and
Mountains clapped and
Meadows flashed

Each in one another;
The gods took cover.

instead of leaving
you could find yourself broken
like an artist who's trying his best to fly
(i'm not always ascending
but sometimes i'm smart enough to try)
for the greatest pain of living
could be the smartest pain to come by

you could find yourself living inside of a dream
cos heartache is healthier than it seems
you are a derailed train
and i am the mystery of the
pain that's listening to every move you make

that turns into bearing an almost child
broken at it's wake.

You look so warm inside the rays,
I watch them as they dance ballet.
Across your face they pirouette,
until my every worry, I forget.

You kiss each other playfully,
blissfully unaware of me.
Glowing in the afternoon,
Your golden skin, it makes me swoon.
I'm far too mesmerized with you nearby,
watching days pass within your eyes.

You look at me and
I become the hours,
seconds, minutes, it overpowers.
Blinded by a solar flare,
ignitions in the air,
burning all around,
wishing the sun would never go down,
Slow down.

You stick around to watch the sunset,
I start to become a silhouette.
It's getting dark,
until your laugh lights up a spark.

A fire growing on the inside,
Shadows run and hide,
darkness can't survive,
when you're ablaze.

You're a star from outer space,
Rising up to interlace,
the human race.

This I always knew,
is what connected me and you,
and we're connecting all of us.

Call it trust.
Parts of you that can't be seen
illuminate the heart of me.

Today before I left for school
I went through the old photo albums in my house
I took out two pictures
My mom and dad at their wedding
And my dad dancing with me when I was still a little girl
On my walk to school I started crying
So I took out the pictures
My mom looked beautiful in her dress
More importantly she looked happy.
My dad stared at her in a way I've never seen before
He was happy too
He looked proud to have me
I could tell
And for a few seconds I felt better
But then I thought of them now
I thought about how my dad is always gone
And how my mom doesn't talk much anymore
And the sadness rushed back.
It still hasn't left