I am not scared of the dead.
I am scared of the living.
I am scared of broken bones.  
Of the way they curl my skin like pages torn from an old book, simply by slicing my flesh with their words.
I have felt enough for this life and the next.
I have no fear left for the deceased.
For the ghosts of those past. They hold no power over my mortality.
But the living- they have stabbed and ripped and cut like I am an animal ready for consumption.
I am not scared of the dead.
I am envious of their peace.

You make me feel like a wolf under the full moon.
I am howling for you.
I am calling for you.
I am trying to live in the way you make my skin curl and shed. I have never seen anything like you.
You make me feel like I am the ocean-
I know nothing but to surrender to your push and pull.
(I have never been a good swimmer)
You make me feel like I am going out of my flesh for you. For feeling like I am the only one who wants to see your craters or the way you move yourself against the inky black sky.
I cannot be the only one who is weak to your gravity, but I swear, you will never find someone who floats like me.
Or breaks like me, even. I am stardust captured in skin and bone. You are the moon and I am your own.

I felt the Strawberry Moon on your fingertips. You traced it on the palm of my hand. Your magic is different, I felt it, it was softer than I’ve ever been. You touched me and I felt velvet crushed against my skin. I heard my heart stutter your name and then cower against my ribs again. You draped yourself along the lines of my hands and I can’t, I can’t, I can’t seem to let you in. I am an open palm waiting for a knife and my fingers curl against the blade without a fight. But for you, I have melted and left a stain on your skin. I have felt the trace of your fingertips and I wonder if I’ll ever get back to how I was again. Your strawberry rays have captivated me, I swear, I know nothing like you. You wrote your secrets on the palm of my hand but I couldn’t understand the language you left them in.

It felt like the cement floor had open me up and enveloped me like a rib cage longing for a heart. I was slightly out of grasp, or just slightly out of touch. I have never heard the night sky sing like this with sadness or the cooing creak of cicadas. The red church sat with judgmental green doors blinking at me as strangers walked the steps inside to see a home I have never known or wanted. I have never needed that sort of love. The medicine I have tasted comes from binges of technicolor cartoons on nights that lasted too long. Time has been running out since it started and I can’t tell if it’s better to count what was or what will be. And the church with its emerald eyes has sat with its gaze cast at my window, as if to say I am picking wrong I am picking wrong. I cannot escape the anvil that straps itself to my chest when I go to bed. Maybe someone is praying for me.

I was told once that apathy was in my blood.
Climbing like squid ink midnight black through the ocean begging for the forlorn sun.
I have seen atrocities in these veins of mine, calling to the moon for forgiveness, I have howled a hollow cry- it has made my bones crack.
There is no room in these ribs for complacence. For apathy or for those who don't protect the petals of the heart that I wear like a fruit ripe for picking.
I am delicate but I am not hollow. I am full to the brim and I will run my tongue across the dripping pearls of honey which leak from my sides when roses coated in gold ***** me with their thorns.
I am not scared of the weight I must hold to carry these onyx bones.  I am not worried about apathy. I am not worried about the way my blood will curdle when it is tainted with poison or lust or desire. I am not worried about the way that I will sound when my heart is ripped from my chest and held between calloused palms.
I have never worried about the song I will sing when I have nothing left on my lips except the shallow cry I will leave to the world- the one that says
I have loved and I will never have to be enough for you.

You have chattering teeth that spill like oil hollographic on wet pavement
Lying between rows, saying that I miss you is not the same as

I am lonely (but don't know how to be alone)

And the ghost that resides between your bones was best suited with flesh
Far from that whose felt heaviest when it was close to yours

(Mine)

You have found the hole in the wall, the silk stained sheets drenched with sweat that poured from your skin when the words

Like and love

Were intertwined with once upon a time.
But you have hands grown cold like the drink you held between your palms when you realized that you didn't choose me along

I chose myself

I fell asleep to you after binges of Chinese food. And movies playing too loud, warping my mind to include translucent holographic dreams and 90's cartoons.
I am used to quick moving waters, cutting the banks of the rivers that flow through my bones. I am versed in their tongue but not quite you- stopped and steady after nights of solitude.
How can I sleep with insomnia that tastes like the sweetest dessert that has ever graced my lips, my tongue, my skin. I am too messy to be compartmentalized. I am too messy for you. I am too messy. I am.