again, this vessel bursts and turns to bite me like a dog.
an open palm connects with the doughy skin on my temple;
repeat the action til it satisfies.
i pray for my skull to give way at the soft parts,
implode at the seams. it smiles in my mind's eye,
tickles my nerves from the inside.

i'll still feel the buzzing inside me, the boil-bubble-brew of this rage,
i wish i could tell you. i wish i could tell you.

this is a poem about my violence and all the glittering ways i self destruct.

i. it's a sad morning, but only i feel it. he wakes me up with *****. it's 5am again but still too dark outside to see so i take in the scent of his sick; i notice myself being pulled closer. i realize he thinks im sleeping and hope he lets me stay--he doesn't, but it's not his fault. it never is. he drags me out by the knobs on my feet; i dig my nails in the carpet, puke pooling under the fingers, the fibers rip the nails right off me--he starts to cry. i wonder why he's crying. he drives me home in silence, leaves me spitting in the snow, crashes the car on the way home. i'm through two pots of coffee already by the time he decides to love me in the morning.

ii. i wake, again, with my head on the floor; but this time it's my own. this 5am is dark as well, save for the light of my phone on the wall--it's ringing, the buzzing sticks knives in my head. i pick up and see his pale green eyes, deadpan and silent; i hear him crying in my head nonetheless. he asked me if he woke me up and i lie; i'm just thinking about the muscles on his back, the worry-lines, and our nicotine habit. he is unrecognizable now, but it's my fault--he looks so different under street lamps at 3am, so much softer when my vision is clouded by amphetamines. i find solace in the fact that, after all this time, he might be too late.

"we would've been forever," he said. "you and i would've been forever." i realize his eyes aren't even ******* green anymore. i thought you weren't afraid of anything? "i know," i say, and i hang up the phone for the last time.

i don't want to make sense anymore
i catch myself thinking in fragments again,
i emote in pieces; react at the apex,
my head never lets me just be angry;
i snap but i just dent the drywall again.
if these hands were stronger i'd tear the whole house down, i swear i can tear the whole house down, i could

at least these few more months,
you could love me until then.
can you at least pretend

i can feel your itch to crash the car
from the passenger’s seat,
you don't have to say anything.
don’t wait until you drop me off.
id rather hurt with you

you tear cuticles off
while i beg you to stay without words
you don’t listen
there's no point in pretending if you're leaving anyway,
it’s never enough
there’s no one left

i think of you in bloom

in the morning my back aches,
the sun rises with you everyday.
this obsession like cheap alcohol in cans
we throw up when it's too much.

i know your hands will be the ones to **** me.
not used to being loved more than you're loving
you fumble every clasp and button.

i long for nausea in tongues and on couches,
the sick feeling of love in my gut,
drifting off to the hum of your engine.

in my dreams i let the door lock behind me.
the air is heavy,
silent.

i take a walk.
i'd like to imagine it's warm
outside but

i know
i'd be weightless in summer.
so, the snow falls

i make footprints--my feet sink down inches and inches.

the room is warm, so warm it chokes me. the walls are draped with rugs and greyed with dust; the lamp-light struggles to reach my eyes through the smoke. cecilia wields her blade and runs her tongue along the edge. she has to taste it, she says. to make sure it's right. her yellowed teeth meet the hilt and she leans in my direction; the point of her weapon reaches my temple, caresses the skin there, leaves a drop of her spittle on my cheek from the pressure. she looks up at me--i hate her expression. i hate the sag of her skin; the way she looks at me; her cloudy, flitting corneas; dead and sightless. she's wearing my shirt. it drapes her frame. she looks terrible. i swallow my disgust and stare hard, i close the space between us. she kisses her blade, one last time, for good luck. love is oppressive. cecilia carves me a new pair of eyes.