i wish i were a hero
so that i could save you
from the enemy:
myself

twenty-four hours spent on you,
and i think i'm done mourning
the one thing we never had.

i can't breathe.
my lungs are filled with
your words,
your hands,
your skin.

i'm drowning.
i'm suffocating.
but with every breath
i don't take,
i feel.

(you bring me alive.
it's funny 'cause
you're killing me.)

i'm fragile, about to break,
on a one-way street to the end of the world -
but i'm great at hiding the cracks in my skin
with fool's gold and cheap paint

if i tore away my human skin
would you see stars beneath?

if i stitched myself back together
would you find gossamer galaxies?

i don't want to drown, you say.
you jump back in anyway.

he and you are a whirlpool
save for one thing:

the two of you will burn.

fruit on the sidewalk
fallen from the trees above
bleeding from too many footsteps
(of people who didn't care)
staining the cement with
the bright spring shades

and i'm saying "please don't leave me"
and you're deaf to my words -
crushing me under your heel -
but the colors i bleed are not spring
(they are summer heartbreak
and winters lost)

i love you in sixteen ways:
one for each year of my life.

don't fear me fading.
with every breath that passes,
i'll just love you more.

i sorta kinda want to die
but it would be a decision
that can't be undone
and i'm not good at commitment

you are oil on asphalt.
when it rains,
you glow.

sorry about the blood on my hands
i swear it's not yours

WHY CAN'T YOU TELL ME
THE THINGS I TELL YOU

I WANT TO BEAR
YOUR BURDENS TOO

let us set aflame
those who thought
we could burn.

they did not know
of the suns within us.

they did not know
you cannot burn
a star.

no matter how many times i fall,
by my mistake or someone's push,
i will rise again.

i'll rise with blood staining the ground;
with the taste of iron on my lips;
with the knowledge that
you can't fool me twice -

and when i rise...
castles will crumble beneath my fists.
oceans will rush to greet my blood,
for my body and the sea
share the same kind of power.
i'll pour magma onto the cities
and build them anew.

after the fall,
i will be better than before,
and the ones who pushed me down
will be nothing more than
faces in a crowd.

perhaps i should thank them.
without my collapse
i would not have remade
myself or the world.

people had always told her to hold her breath.
now she knows that you do not stop on the inhale.
when you are a monster, you breathe fire.
you watch the world burn.
you do not apologize for being.

the living are dying.

maybe that means
the dead are living.

here's what i remember:
fighting over whose laugh was better
(yours, no matter what you say);
pounding our feet on the dance floor
like we could shake our worlds;
loving you so much that my teeth ached
at the very thought of you.

my friend says i only remember the good,
reminds me of tears and heartbreak.
i tell her memory is fickle,
just like you.

i tell you, yes. i know.
alexandria burned
brighter than my soul.

i used to long for quiet.
noise was infuriating -
people breathing, speaking,
doing things i couldn't control.

now i'd give just about anything
to feel that type of anger,
to hear my sister talking in her sleep,
to listen to music in the air,
not through the soles of my feet.

now i'd give just about anything
to be able to talk to my friends
without reading their lips
to fill in the blanks,
without needing my best guess.

now i'd give just about anything
to ensure that "could you repeat that?"
never passes my lips
into a world i can't hear.