One day someone will make this body of mine bloom like a garden of wild roses.
I think I would pick each petal off and dry what remained.
My body is a desert but my roses don't need rain.

I want pieces of you like the landscape that surround your bones.
I want you like the moons that engulf your soul.

I want pieces of your mind engraved in mine.
I want each continent of your flesh pressed against my own.

I want your teeth cutting boundaries of where no one else can go.
I want my body to be a Mecca but only for your own.

I have nimble fingers that creak and crack at the thought of weighted limbs and tangled flesh.
Like the waxing moon pulling off each of my nails-
One by one.
I am scared of climbing with broken hands.
I am versed in lust but love I have only thought of as
dripping
From my tongue after morning tea.
I am not who I think I am at all-
I have always been afraid of lovers who pull the zipper of my flesh.
I am not as naked without my clothes as without my bones.
I have always worn them crooked.

Today-
I feel special even though the sun has set the exact same way.
Maybe I am finally the the moon, or maybe it's just you.

Romanticizing fantasy or refusing to see what’s in front of me-
It has always felt the same.
I have never been scared of silence and stillness
But I’ll take it back again.

I will steal your soul and bones without condition.
Like barbed wire rooftops-
I would kiss your sorrow sans inhibition.

So take me or break me, it's really all the same.
I'm the mirror that shattered and sliced your fingers
                         -your favorite superstition.

You are tangled memories and oh my god you had your grip on me. You planted your seeds and wrapped your fingers around my ribs and warped the cage that homes my heart, my tragedies. You tangled my flesh and stole my skin and I think that’s a sin- you were always my favorite sin but you lost me oh my god you lost me and you left me in the cemetery to decay in the breeze. You’ve gone and left to find your home in someone else’s veins but you’ll never find bones that break quite the same as the ones that I wear. You were gas stations and memories and cigarette smoke you kissed onto me. You were gin and sin and poetry read in your bed as your flesh was pressed against me. You were rooftops and coffee shops oh my god you were mornings of lazy limbs and tangled trees-you were the nights I couldn’t sleep. You had your chance to be with me and lost your grip and set me free.

I let the television play as I write
So I can forget all the static in my brain so I can forget all the buzzing in my ears
So I can forget all the thoughts running over and over.
You’re a rerun I’ve grown tired of but you’re on a channel I can’t get rid of.
I’m stuck and I wonder if I’m stuck on you or-
If maybe I just ran out of batteries.
I think your empty chatter feeds the emptiness more than the blood does in my veins.
You’re the sort of memory etched on my flesh that I turn the television on to forget.