there’s no real gold, but this kind is for fools like us who don’t know any better.

you make me feel like the world is ending, so i allow you to smile at me. i let you hug me and ask if i’m okay. i say yes. i’m just tired. but there’s so much i don’t tell you: how your baby blue eyes make me feel like everything is crashing and burning, how when you hug me, i feel like we’ve made a fire in antarctica (something warm in this cold warzone of a world).

stop worshiping young gods, false gods, no god- this place is not a temple.

you are nothing. i want you to be nothing to me. because the last time i felt like this, i got my heart ripped out of my chest by his pretty, stepped on by reality, and spat on by every person who said, “i told you so.” the stars are my hope, and the sad thing is that all of those stars are already dead. maybe it’s troubling to think about it that way, but it’s all that i’ve got. but with these hopes and my fears i can’t be free.

i’ve got petrichor trapped in a bottle, and melancholy in my eyes and they sing hallelujah.*

i tell my friend that i like the way you smell in the morning. for ages i haven’t been able to why. i’ve known you for over a year and only now am i figuring out why. it makes you human. it smells like brand new, clean, and sweat. yes. there’s something beautifully strange in the way your most human attribute is the way you smell after walking to school, but this prison might be the only way i can feel you hold me when you know i’m not okay.

i just want your compass to point you to the home you could find in me

**it doesn't matter anyway

come on in baby the water is warm

i'm afraid to dive,
because
last time
i lost bits and pieces of myself
inside.

kiss me baby my lips are warm

i can't, because i'll swallow
what was left of the pride
in my mouth
when your tongue
is inside.

i'll hold you baby my body is warm*

my body is a shaking
little mess,
but you open your arms
and hold me
inside.

don’t rip my heart out of my chest until the swallows are choking on their hallelujahs.

twelve year old girls are popping pills; mommy’s medicine cabinet, vicodin to numb the pain. slitting wrists is out of style so they smoke instead, slow motion suicide that is nothing but a human way of escape. self sacrifice is sin unless you can make it look like an accident.

mommy and daddy think i am innocent but i’ve lost my sense of self awareness, i crash.

babydolls drool on her pillow tonight, their chests are ripped open and their eyes are gouged out. baby lucy doesn’t want to meet little bear, she’s already met the beasts in her mommy’s heart that beats at a rapid speed even when she’s sleeping. mommy is weeping.

it’s my party, it’s my party, i’ll **** well cry if i want to.*

my mind is not twisted, it’s just a little hazy, so i’ve forgotten who i am. no one knows how crazy it can get when your parents toss you around like a rag doll maybe i’ll bleed out all of the drugs that are swirling inside me.

i.
only kiss her outdoors,
where the sun will darken her pale skin and

light up her dark eyes like a candle
in a dark room

ii.
don't tell her your sins.
she will find them.

an angel always finds out about sins you can't even remember
committing. when she finds them, you will

remember and she will kiss your scars
before slitting her own skin begging you to lick the cut clean

iii.
put her on a vegan diet. then watch her
as the mango juices drip down her chin.

wipe them away with a gentle, careful, loving thumb.
watch as she licks the mango from it.

iv.
cuddle with her, innocently, in the gardens.
then hold her hand as she flies you

into the clouds.