i kept this love for you hidden in my veins like drugs or alcohol, like you could just find it on my breath if i leaned in too close or too soon. i blink and i hear your voice/feel your touch. i blink and i can almost rewind to those sweet winter days, the spring, the summer, the days you called me beautiful. falling for you was not seasonal. it was yearlong and so heavy lidded and blissful.

i still want to grow old with you. i want to ask you, “honey, did you feed the fish?” i want to go on our one hundredth date and still get butterflies. i want to look into those beautiful eyes and know that right then, right there, i’m looking at my whole ******* world. i want to wake up with your body so tangled with mine we could be mistaken for a singular, otherworldly being. i want to come home later in the day and tell you about my day at work as i’m in the recliner and you’re massaging my shoulders. i want the purest softest love the universe can muster.

you make me sure of one thing, and that is that love transcends. period.

everything about you is a reminder of what love is to me. and i want to protect that love more than anything in the world, okay?

Sometimes I force myself into this certain mood
One that my therapists weren’t able to conclude

I think I would describe it as if I were on the ocean floor
Beautiful yet isolated in the dark with no door

Life is calming and depressing yet beautiful in a way
I reminded myself that I ditched reality, I wasn’t one to stay

I have these tricks that I use to make myself feel numb
Some would say they’re dangerous, but at least they make my heart drum

***** tastes like water, and cigarettes feel like fresh air
When I use too much I sometimes pull out my hair

Sometimes these mechanisms make me cry
But people just label this beautiful thing as ‘high’

Once in awhile I want to stay in that trance forever with no end
Because why should it matter when I have no one to call a friend?

No one cares in my mind but maybe it’s because I want to be alone
Maybe it’s because I force myself to feel this pain down to the bone

Why do I love to hurt myself so much?
I love the way things sting when there’s pain to the touch

Maybe it’s a dark addiction out of the many I own
One where I would love for my life to just postpone

Once again as I write this I want something to make me numb
Or maybe I just took something to think I’m having fun

To pave a smile upon my face for only a few hours at most
I’ve asked myself multiple times, ‘how much to overdose?’

I have a relatively good life but a relatively gruesome mind
When I get in these moods, happiness is the hardest to find

I don’t want to feel happy again
I feel like my body is the one to condemn

I don’t want to feel like this necessarily
But the way it comes upon me is completely involuntary

I don’t want to get better
But don’t worry because this is not my suicide letter.



h.m.w

If you were to ask me
“where does beauty come from?”
i would say what you might not believe
“why, beauty comes from lips and fingertips,
what do you think?”

never mind,
i imagine him saying,
you know i lied.
you were never that beautiful.

he called me stunning and i wanted to say i loved him.
i wanted to say there was no mortal above him.

goddess, he said.

--

i'm seventeen and unfulfilled,
running from myself,
but however fast i am i still can't
get away from this place, from me.

self-destructing souvenirs in my head
why won't they burn away already
there's something empty about this bed
and my heart is growing heavy

--

i don't want to treasure you.
diamonds are always cutting me to shreds,
but they're never on my hands
pretty boys, they never take me to bed.

they just say hello to say goodbye.

i'll make it snow if you want it to,
i'd suffer the cold if only for you.

will you show me all the places
that make you feel at home
when you're feeling out of place
with no where else to go?

because lately i've been
feeling like a square peg,
trying to fit into a round hole.

but you make me feel
like there are places
i belong.

will you listen to music with me in the graveyard
with my head against your chest,
and let me sing about a place so far
as you say you like me best?

because lately i've been
hoping for something sweet
and i felt when you held my hand.

as you helped me
like a delicate flower
over a stone wall.

will you tell my i'm worthy a million times,
until i believe in you, in that truth,
with all my heart despite my crimes
because of the love i feel when with you.

because lately i've been
thinking you're something soft
someone i could grow to love someday.

you are not the
shield you put up, so
open your gates to me.