we were on the phone really late
and i'd rather hear your voice next to me
but this will have to be close enough

the conversation lulled as we both started to yawn
and i hoped after we said goodbye you'd dream of me

we said goodnight and you said 'i love you' first, this time
i said 'i love you, too' with a smile encasing my whole body
and you said 'yeah-yuh'
like me loving you too meant you won the jackpot

and i have never felt more like gold

i read and reread telling myself i'm checking for grammatical errors
but really i'm just trying to get a glimpse into myself

i never quite meet my own eyes between the lines
and i wonder if it's even me behind the words
or just a keyboard trying to make sense of itself

i paint things gold quite often,
does that mean i hide my problems behind shiny coats of denile?

i overuse the word rot,
does that mean i'm just waiting to decompose, eaten by the mold of my own terrible decisions?

i used to say bones more than i said love,
does that mean i feel like a skeleton without a heart or soul? or maybe love is what wore me down till i was bare;

i used to say love more

it's like flicking through my old playlists

why do i only write when i feel like hiding? or rot? or bones?
i wish i could write when i felt like flying. or music. or even just

human

i graze the comments with a loving hand
thinking of all the people that broke in the same places
thinking of everyone feeling like rotten bones, hiding from their demons
and clinging to the hope that it was sympathy and not empathy
that brought them close to my wilting garden of poems

i hope

and every tear stained poem blends into the next
the ink bleeding

i look at the scars on my fingers and i see myself
i listen to my voice singing songs from an old playlist and i see myself
i feel the flesh covering my bones and i see myself

and i don't write it down

the knives that slit the dandelions from your fingers
cut into my sleep and burn the insides of my eyelids black
i know it isn't the same hurt, but that hurts more
all i wanted was to paint your fingertips gold
but they bleed red rose petals in my nightmares and
wake me too late

the memories draping over your face like a bridal veil
don't hide your tears from me
please let me take them from your head
your past has an ugly face
full of broken promises that made a little girl grow old too fast
don't keep your pain in your pockets in place of your dandelions

i know this is why i learned how to sew
at the time i thought it was so i could quilt my thoughts together
in a way that made sense
but seeing your bleeding fingers in my dreams made me realize
that my needle wasn't for the fabric i bought
it was for skin and bone and bleeding hearts that mean more to me than gold

i stand here
in this room of cement
dreaming to be on the outside.

though, this dream is mercurial.

i can see the outside, through the one thing in the room.
a stained glass window.

it's colors clashing and colliding, to form the most beautiful picture
and suddenly,

my dream doesn't seem as important.

as the light shines through, the colors coat the room with warmth and beauty.

i've only one thing keeping me from my dream

something so fragile and so elegant, yet has the strongest hold on me.

i've only one thing keeping me from my dream

and yet,

i can't bring myself to destroy it.

my smiles have been glowing and holding in my *****
so i wanted to read a pretty little sonnet
gasping and choking on laughter mottled by blood
the words come in tears, the poems in a flood
it's been ages since i cried, i was doing so well
but every sad poem brought back my screams of hell

my demons didn't go away, i just painted them gold
and i'd be fooling myself saying i had a hand to hold
life is a joke, who gives a ****?
it's just a mix of bad timing and luck
so i kept laughing and choking and holding my own hand
remembering some song from my new old favorite band

telling me love is a labor and to slave 'till the end
swinging life away with scars and a friend
so i didn't have to read a happy poem today
i just had to write one and send it your way
so smile with me, break open your face
'cause life is just a vat marked toxic waste