seeing you is different. its

cold, impersonal. my skin feels the way it feels when i leave my fort in the morning, skin stung with unfamiliar air. i dont go out by choice anymore. i want to be the girl in the pictures, eyelashes fluttering and bangs caught in the artificial wind, glowing. he said i look like her but i just dont see it, im stringy, detached, like a third grade picasso. no one can hold that, can kiss that, can care for that. your eyes on mine feel calculated and i dont know what to say anymore. neither do you. what happened?

oú est-ce que je peux aller? quand je meurs, quand je suis dans le sol finallement, est-ce que ma amê est meurt aussi? protèges-la, stp. je ne veux pas aller le ciel, je veux etre dans le sol. je attendre pour le sol tous ma vie.

im waiting for you in the attic and you'd find it strange but
im tracing your name in the dust on the floorboards
and wearing my father's old letter jacket
and thinking about the night when you tied the thread around my finger and told me red is a reminder of your love
so when you left i pulled at the strings until my fingernail turned white
and willed for color to spill

god i want to die
im chewing on cotton and wishing that i could just rewind to an hour ago
when the candles were burning
and our cheeks were flushed
we were huffing other people's secrets and leaking trust that was misplaced
i should've closed all the doors and hid under silk and set fire to every mistake i left behind in a trail
gasoline and a lighter and regret sealed in her kiss

you cut holes in your sweaters
and stick your thumbs inside
and color your nails with markers
like koi in a meadow of fairy moss
you eat the words straight off the paper of your favorite novel
you don't wear shoes
your knees are bruisy
and i watch you taste literature
like it's your last meal

i.
midnight drives on these long nights,
i leave the heat
low
in my car
so i can see my breath
in order to know
that i am still breathing- alive.

ii.
after the blankets
of white
come the blooms of brilliance
roots sunken under green.

this is the kind of feeling
that makes you
soar
over mountaintops
and trees
of green.

iii.
bare arms and
tank topped torsos
sweat dripping onto
each other as we
embrace.

words i say
emanating heat and
childlike perfection
chalk marked sidewalks.

bright eyed, i say yes.

iv.
colours.
orange, yellow, red.

the trees
are on fire-
it's that time
of the year.

the trees are on fire,
but
cool air
is
holding desperately
on to
my space.

v.
maybe your heat could melt my icy skin. condensation dripping from your finger tips. i'm holding on to this, this moment. my life isn't in several shades of watercolour blue hues, but in vibrant shades of yellow. mustard is the one shade that's screaming whispers and lighting matches.

i saw her Eyes from the across the concrete field, not blue like an ocean but blue like my porch steps after it rains, blue like the bathmat i See as i watch it from above water, swirling and spinning under clear film, blue like the dorothy dress i Saw in the church when i was small, blue like my skin when i am dead and blue like my veins when life is brought unto me again. blue like the glow from my house's edwardian windows when i Look at them at sunset, blue like the wind and the goddess and the dew; she Looked back

i felt your arms sink into my chest cavity,
like how ghosts float through skin, phantom hands in my body
you could pull out anything you wanted to

my feet feel like phantom limbs if i sit just right,
underneath my floral sheets, i sleep on the floor now
i made a nest. i will hide in it until i can see through my skin again

i had a dream last night, ive been remembering them again, ever since the woods. i couldnt feel my leg anymore, i couldnt feel it like i said would happen and i cried and cried and cried (i slept till 1pm) was i always this disconnected? did i always zone out in cold baths, tracing checkerboard tiles over  and over again? did i always want to die like this? i shouldnt have helped myself. i shouldve given up 2 summers ago, when i could still have been peaceful, when they could still put me in some metal casket with nothing in my veins or chest cavity, when they would have tied my mouth shut with one of those bread ties in my gums