****

sin tastes like the back of your neck

the stars in your eyes shine brighter than the comets falling from your open wrists

pacify my mouth with a white-knuckled fist
and kiss my scars with a tongue void of emotion
squeeze my knees together with hands too bruised to hold
with my shaking fingers
will the knots around my neck
  squeeze me like you do
    and leave bruises like you do
the ends of your hairs tickle me
along the sides of my neck
and tell me to scream
tell me to scream
scream when you leave me alone after dark
scream when the burn of alcohol no longer stings my lips
scream when the bags under your eyes turn into luggage
    stationed next to the front door
your hands around my neck tightens like the knots never could
and the luggage looks like heaven
and somehow i find myself in the inside of your suitcase

A peck of his lips filled with sin
     my labored breathing  
          his calloused hands wander my body
          exploring every inch of me
He holds my hand
      and steals my breath
           with a rope he found in the kitchen
Calloused hands wander over my body
     as he lay me with his ex lovers
          each more beautiful than  the next
          each more grave than the last
Beware of boys with blue eyes like sapphires dropping in the ocean

he could never love me as much as he touches you

no longer will your eyes remind me of a well
     i fell into
no longer will my hands trace the ghost of yours
     against my body late at night
no longer will i wait for you
    because you left me long ago

your tongue down his throat stabbed my spine
and your fingers in his hair tore the veins in my wrist
you smell like his cologne and i want to stick ******* down my throat
when your hands intertwine like vines on a gravestone
remember me six feet under

The world would be a better place if'

If three out of five women weren’t ***** around the globe

If 103 million women in Africa alone weren’t circumcised
And didn’t have to mutilate themselves in order to attract a husband

If 20.9 million plus weren’t sold into *** trafficking

If women and girls didn’t make up 98% of that number

If men didn’t make on average $7,000,000 more than women in their lifetime in the US

If one out of every six of American females were not *****

If they weren’t told
“It’s your fault”
“What were you wearing?”
“You must have provoked him”
“What are you complaining about? At least you had ***”

If one of every forth woman didn’t experience domestic abuse in their lifetime

If every 15 seconds a woman is saved from battery rather than experiencing it

If the 16% of seats in congress stood equal to the 51% females make up for in the population

If 73% of girls under the age of 13 didn’t want to change an aspect of their physical appearance
And if that number didn’t raise to 90% by the time of adulthood

If girls weren’t told “think like a man!”

If “running like a girl” meant to run the fastest you possibly could

If there wasn’t a national debate on what women can or can’t do to their own body

If girls weren’t sent home because her shorts were too short
But boys can wear a shirt saying “Cool story babe, go make me a sandwich” without anything being said

If girls could venture alone at night
Without being scared of the men hiding in the dark

If we got over this notion that cat-calling should be regarded as flattery
Rather than a threatening presence by an unknown man

The world would be a better place if

his grip on my thighs become the reason
i lie about the boys of summertime
and their sweaty hands that trail my tan spine
which turn into sharp knives come wintertime
as snowflakes fall to the hardened ground
i remember my body against yours
and the burning embers of our red love
in fall it dims and dims and dims more
until its black against the white ground
black like the nights we snuck out our homes
and found each other with the white of flashlights
the sun rises before we're ready
winter comes before we're ready
our burning fire turns to cold cold ash

he took the bottle of happiness
doctors prescribed to him
in order to wipe out the demons
inside of him
and emptied the pills onto his tongue
while tasting the metallic tablets
a gulp of water raced down his throat
the pills swam through the liquid
down to the boy's stomach
and lay there like a body in a coffin

he told me my hair smelt like campfire
only so he could burn me to the ground

On the solid grounds
He lifts me up to the sun
And falls back to earth

Along pink flowers
Hyperactive butterflies
Flutter on my nose

We roll down the hill
Grass stains cover my body
He still kisses them

He reminds me of
Sun shining through thunder storms
And turtles swimming

He jumped in the lake
And drowned from the weight of rocks
Kept in his pockets

Sun shines through the trees
And onto the river bed
He tells me ‘hello’

its cold outside and i cant stop thinking about how warm your arms were last winter and the white breath you exhaled after inhaling toxicity and the hat you lost to the wind on the top of that bridge and your warm lips on my cold nose and how you told me that even if snow fell from the sky it wouldn't fall from the ground but you were wrong because since you left my worlds been upside down instead of right side up and i found your hat in the pocket of my jacket before i left it outside for the wind to take back and the toxicity left from you still resides inside of me and i think your arms no longer hold warmth