kiss me in your backseat
like nothing has ever been like this before
'cause you kiss like a promise
like you have never wanted anything more
than me

and just maybe, i'm crazy about you baby
and i guess it's a mess but i've always loved messy
things

and with your lips on my neck, i feel like the best is yet to come
and with my heart on my sleeve, i hope you can see it beats like a drum

and i'm wrapped around your finger and my gaze might just linger on your face
and i can't help but notice what we've made of this moment in this place

is beautiful
you're beautiful.

in the streetlights, with your brown eyes looking into my heart
hold me tighter, with your bright lights lighting up the dark
you're lighting up

you're turning me into lights, i'm glowing in the dark
you put them inside of my eyes and then you called them stars
you used them to make constellations, i am so very complacent
'cause i just need your radiation, and i'm so caught up in this rotation
oh, gravitational pull, your laughter's such a moon when it's full
your intergalactic soul is home here,
you're well-known here, and i've got no fears, no not yet

when life gets a lot more than a little bit heavy,
i could fly to the moon, bring back the zero gravity,
and everyone's so serious and grave,
buried six feet under pain.
but i assure you, you will always have me

you're turning me into lights, i'm glowing in the dark
you put them inside of my eyes and then you called them stars
you used them to make constellations, i am so very complacent
'cause i just need your radiation, and i'm so caught up in this rotation
oh, gravitational pull, your laughter's such a moon when it's full
your intergalactic soul is home here,
you're well-known here, and i've got no fears, no not yet

when life seems to fade into a greyish breeze,
i could fly into space, bring you the colours of the galaxies
and everyone's gone so numb
ten degree burns, and black hole suns.
but the look on your face has been dusted by pixies.

you're turning me into lights, i'm glowing in the dark
you put them inside of my eyes and then you called them stars
you used them to make constellations, i am so very complacent
'cause i just need your radiation, and i'm so caught up in this rotation
oh, gravitational pull, your laughter's such a moon when it's full
your intergalactic soul is home here,
you're well-known here, and i've got no fears, no not yet

when life's like a cloud of rain, no silver linings,
and you feel like you down pain without even trying,
and everything's gone so dark,
come on, let us make a spark.
our souls can mingle in the air we'll be flying.

you're turning me into lights, i'm glowing in the dark
you put them inside of my eyes and then you called them stars
you used them to make constellations, i am so very complacent
'cause i just need your radiation, and i'm so caught up in this rotation
oh, gravitational pull, your laughter's such a moon when it's full
your intergalactic soul is home here,
you're well-known here, and i've got no fears, no not yet

i'm moving forward,
i'm growing stronger
what doesn't **** you
turns you into stone
medusa
i'm growing stronger
i'm moving forward
what doesn't **** you
chills you to the bone
medusa

and ooh where do you go
ooh i'm trying not to care.
who do you think you are
ooh with snake venom in your hair
medusa, medusa

and i'm moving forward,
i'm growing stronger
what doesn't **** you
turns you into stone
medusa
i'm growing stronger
i'm moving forward
what doesn't **** you
chills you to the bone
medusa

and this stone cold heart feels nothing anymore
this stone cold heart feels nothing
medusa
and this stone cold heart feels nothing anymore
you're nothing anymore
cause i'm
i'm medusa

i used to think that confidence
was never really common sense
thought it was like lost innocence
it was something you earned
but you make me feel so worth it
w/o showering me in compliments
you’ve awaken all of my senses
i’m feeling alive

don’t tell me that fate is a lie
i’ll believe in it until i die
doesn’t matter long as i try
to be better than i am
to be bigger than my issues
i’m crying away all the tissues
you’ve never said “i’ll fix you”
you’ve just said “i’m here”

sometimes the way you look at me
i swear it’s just make-believe
but i live for this lucid dream
that keeps me wide awake
you’re what i write about when i can’t sleep
i know that talk is freaking cheap
but your words
have more worth
than any dollar bill.
i’m letting my thoughts spill.
your space, i’d gladly fill.

don’t tell me that fate is a lie
i’ll believe in it until i die
doesn’t matter long as i try
to be better than i am
to be bigger than my issues
i’m crying away all the tissues
you’ve never said “i’ll fix you”
you’ve just said “i’m here”

my head on your shoulder
my heart is warm my hands are colder
i’ll just go ahead and hold your
hand to spend away the time
lights out, my eyes won’t shut
no more sadness, yeah, i’ve had enough
this insomniac’s not waking up
this dream is here to stay

don’t tell me that fate is a lie
i’ll believe in it until i die
doesn’t matter long as i try
to be better than i am
to be bigger than my issues
i’m crying away all the tissues
you’ve never said “i’ll fix you”
you’ve just said “i’m here”

step one.
you close your eyes.
you close them tight.
then you press your palms
against your
closed eyelids,
until
you start seeing red spots that remind you
of a song you wrote
for someone so long ago.
that someone doesn't matter anymore,
not really, so eventually,
neither will he.

step two.
you wear a nightgown.
the one with the lacy v neck, the one
that exposes your thighs,
the one with the vintage roses.
you wear it to bed to remind yourself
that you don't have to wear his attention
like a perfume
to feel ****.

step three.
you listen to those songs.
you know which ones.
you listen to them and sing or rap along
until your throat is sore, until
your chest hurts. do it
until you don't know why you're crying,
then write a song about why
you are crying,
so that when you look back,
you can see that it doesn't matter.
heartache fades.

step four.**
dive into a body of water in only
your under garments.
force yourself
to swim,
no matter how much
you want
to drown.

i want to tell a story about the colors in the trees.

i want to tell you about the quaking in my hands.

i want you to know where the rain falls,
how the crashing voices
sound like waves in the night time,
tugged tides tied to the moon
like a leash to a dog.

i want to give you something to regret.

i want you to recall how i, in all of my
innocence and passion
fell over you
(in concentrated lust
but also romance)
on that day in late may,
how you held
my bare body against yours
how in that moment
i remembered nothing but skin and skin
and
skin, nothing
but firsts,
but blessings
but

i want you to wonder how the holy swallow their love.
(i have confirmed, they do it like one would pomegranate seeds- with their eyes shut, but you wouldn't know)

i want you to believe you lost a good thing.
there's love grown in my belly the way
i was told watermelon patches would when
i was young and didn't
know any better.

i want to say that i didn't know you would destroy me.
that the rips under my skin were a shock
the ice-pick to my heart was unexpected.

i want to say something
but all that comes out is
i'm sorry
not knowing what i'm sorry for.

feathered daydreams
semantically encoded heartache
we all remember
i remember

where we came from
we never go back to again
rationalizing pain until it
becomes a drum
and it echoes

i fall down the stairs again
hit my face on the tile
and when my lip bleeds
it comes as a relief

two-pence for lovers
a penny for thoughts
shots of chamomile to chase the night time
away

butterfly beats
ba-dum ba-dum
ba-dum-ba-dum-ba-dum
fluttering
like eyelids longing for greater ends

spit out that memory
pull it out of your ears
maybe it doesn't really
matter anymore

i'll be almost an adult
yet i don't feel mature
as the pain goes down my throat
and collects itself into a ball
of tears.

stuck.

i feel stuck.
i feel sorry.
(i wish i could say i feel nothing.)

i feel like i'm going backwards, asking myself
if i should be or not be at all.

i don't know what i'll say
on my birthday

when they ask me what i wished for
on the candle of the cupcakes

that aren't even the ones i asked for.

i really do wish you no harm.

i hope you don't get pocket lint on your dum-dum,
because that would be tragic.

i hope the next girl you date doesn't bite.
even though, you deserve a gnarly girl
who can get low down and gritty.

i pray you don't fall going up the stairs
and slide all the freaking way down.
i wouldn't want a concussed friend
now would i?

i cross my fingers and shut my eyes,
wishing you a pretty girl with perfect teeth
and pale skin
and an american accent cuter than mine.
in bar. or no- in a basement.

i would never wish you the worst hangover that
you've ever had
with a headache so bad
you feel like you tried to go out with a bang (literally)
like kurt d. cobain, and survived.
if you aren't an uneducated swine and know who that is.

i hope you never feel heartache like this.
feeling your chest tighten with anvil heavy memories
and sun-kissed, barebacked truth because
you had to let go what you love
and love what you let go.
crying when you see "message me i get bored x"
in their bio on a tuesday night, for the first time in six months.

sometimes love leaves you
aching;
longing, for something
your fingers can’t touch,
and your mind can’t identify.

sometimes love leaves you
hungover;
blackout nights/headache in the a.m,
can’t move, your body’s heavy and
last night’s a blur.

sometimes love leaves you
poetry;
lines and lines of whispers,
words that you can only
give to 11:11 wishes, and midnight.

sometimes love(rs) leave;
going like a vagabond,
wanting none of your time,
the ache in your chest
throbbing.

loneliness
used to taste like cough syrup,
coating my throat
in artifice.

now i'm just lovesick
dancing in a sea of lights
they kiss my skin like
tulips/two lips/i'd choose this/new bliss/
our mouths collide like planet & asteroid

blood's rushing through my veins
trying to tell me to sing hallelujah
because i'm finally
just
living

and although
the pain is there
it is fading out of touch

i don't know where to stop
but i'll always
start
with this

i've skinned me knees and i've watched them bleed. i didn't do it on purpose, it just happened when i fell for you.

i don't know how
"i don't feel like crap when i'm with you."
morphed into
"i love you"

but i'm glad it did, and i'm glad
that you said
it back.

you said it back.

you are leathered with residue
decaying the rust off your skin
with our initials crawling into
alabaster sheets that all I have really
felt while staring out at the streets
we're people fading by egotistical
lack of self confidence
even though I admit using
seducing strategies
possibly disgusted by my own
emotions
that I am placing ******
thrills on my own configuration
because it's humid and blatant
unkowling breathing ruthless sentiments
of our holy communion

I am splitting into a holy sin
drenched in blissful wartime rations
of water or passion
your cotton skin and these sheets
bold statements between white teeth
it’s all a fading mystery
you said I’m something childlike
your hands are stained cherry
and even if they were around my neck
I’d whisper your name like a vesper
simply waiting
for the day to come where it all fades
because you refuse to be a
young god
no matter how it seems to be
to me in all of my naivety

yesterday i flew away
on the wings of a crying dove
is it enough when times get rough
to look up at the sun
and to stop running from
the breath that’s caught inside of my lungs

one morning, i started turning
blue inside of my chest
these days haven’t been the best
but i’m still here so i guess
i can count myself as blessed
and then go to finally get some rest

and i said ooh baby why don’t you stay,
i’m left a rock stuck in a hard place
but coal can become diamonds anyway
under the highest of pressure
highest of pressure
you make me feel better
can we get away, babe?

when i fell away, i spent that day
looking at all of my flaws
you see them but you’re not gone
i’m in your chest where i belong
it hasn’t been that long,
but i’m never gonna move along

and i said ooh baby why don’t you stay,
i’m left a rock stuck in a hard place
but coal can become diamonds anyway
under the highest of pressure
highest of pressure
you make me feel better
can we get away, babe?

split myself in two
how i see myself and who i am to you
they’re fighting each other
i still don’t understand why you bother
but somehow you do

i make myself afraid
by looking too hard at yesterday
we’re just lovers holding hands
you don’t try too hard understand
but somehow you ease the pain

and you say ooh baby why don’t we stay,
we are just rocks stuck in a hard place
but coal can become diamonds anyway
under the highest of pressure
the highest of pressure
i make you feel better
can we get away babe?
can we get away?

i'll make it snow if you want it to,
i'd suffer the cold if only for you.

i just want to be alone
with you
it's the only way
i'll ever feel at home

i just want to be known
by you
where the moon and stars
embrace us in their glow

in this place you can not erase the truth
look into my heart because it's filled with stars for you
all in all my heart it calls out into the blue sky
i look into your eyes and i know
that i can say hello, hello
to forever
hello (hello)

i just want to feel you close
to me
it's the only way
i think i'll ever feel whole

i just want you to hold
onto me
while our hearts race
and these lights are turned down low

in this place you can not erase the truth
look into my heart because it's filled with stars for you
all in all my heart it calls out into the blue sky
i look into your eyes and i know
that i can say hello, hello
to forever
hello (hello)

rip me to shreds i won't even mind
just swear you won't try to leave me behind
because love like ours only comes once in a lifetime
i still can't believe you're mine

i just want to be alone
with you
it's the only way
i'll ever feel at home

i just want to be known
by you
where the moon and stars
embrace us in their glow
i look into your eyes and i know
i can say hello, hello
to forever
hello (hello)

your hands touch my face and then you kiss me
i can feel your heart race inside your chest
don't want to stop this peaceful melody

i'm drowning in your world of soft dreams
head on your shoulder when it needs to rest
your hands touch my face and then you kiss me

loving you's learning that love should be easy
when we are together i'm at my best
don't want to stop this beautiful melody

falling in while i wish to see you breathe
breaking down my walls, seeing i am blessed
your hands touch my face and then you kiss me

shivering as your tongue grazes my teeth
you love me as though i'm a lovely mess
don't want to stop this peaceful melody

drunk on your love like tennessee whisky
your body's a map and i'm on a quest
your hands touch my face and then you kiss me
don't want to stop this beautiful melody

i hate endings.
i'm not a lover of beginnings either,
but the story
the stuff in between?
it grabs me so hard, and shakes me by the
shoulders sometimes.

i'm thankful for our in between.
even if the ending is tearing me
to shreds.
even if the clumsiness of our beginning still
runs miles through my head

scene/after/scene/after/poem/after-
(YOU CAN RIP MY HEART OUT, I STILL LOVE YOU)


*i'll be that girl who always waits for the sequel- no matter how long it takes for it to come. i promised you always, i promised you...

i could never ever  forget the night i met nari. it was like magic, like the powers that be wanted our destinies to collide, to crash, to blend.

it was the night a meteor shower was to come to my small town. people came from neighbouring cities just to see them, these bright lights, these shooting stars. everyone was camping out, the high school's football field covered with trucks and blankets and tents. There were even people cuddling with blankets wrapped around them in the bleachers, their words filling the air as they prepared to stare at the sky, prepared to see something more beautiful than anything they'd ever seen.

i was doing the same, sitting in the back of my dad's truck with a blanket over my shoulders, but i was beginning to doze off. i was feeling a sensation much like falling, when i heard a someone speaking in my direction.

"need help staying awake?"

it turns out, i didn't need to stare at the sky and see a meteor shower to see something more beautiful than anything i'd ever seen. i just needed to open my eyes and look at her. she was smiling, and god, she had a smile that grow flowers, birth stars, and mend butterfly wings. and she was smiling. at. me.

it's just us in this hazy bedroom. me & you, your mouth & my neck. i know that these bruises are the kind only love leaves. your teeth, they sink into my skin like i am a fruit forbidden from your tongue, like i am a fruit you needed to taste even if it meant succumbing to the shame of sin.

but there is no shame here, & i'm only allowed to glow, i'm only allowed to sing (to bleed) when you leave me little stab wounds onto my bare skin with the sharp edge of your canines. with your animalistic passion. & when god turns the other way, my nails scrape your skin, digging through your flesh to search for the paradise that lies underneath. you ask if i have ever felt so holy, & i can only respond with this hot spring of tears down my cheeks & eyes that beg you to devour me.

you stab your way into my fallen kingdom. you wash over my collapsed temples. you bite into my fruit. you cry amen & my choir follows suit.

you were the worst mistake
i ever made
and i realize it was a waste
of heart
to want something so fake
that i knew would harm my well being but

all i ever wanted
was everything you promised
why was it so hard to give?
you said you wouldn't stop, love,
but look where that got us
i'm broken and you don't even speak to me anymore

you were outer space
and galaxies.
you were the smile on my face,
and in all my dreams.
but hope has started
to stop coming and it's fleeing but

all i ever wanted
was everything you promised
why was it so hard to give?
you said you wouldn't stop, love,
but look where that got us
i'm broken and you don't even speak to me anymore

memories burn down the walls of my mind
everything's slowing frozen in time
i never asked for much
i expected more than this
i guess
i guess
it was too much

all i ever wanted
was everything you promised
why was it so hard to give?
you said you wouldn't stop, love,
but look where that got us
i'm broken and you don't even speak to me anymore

all i ever wanted
was everything you promised
why was it so hard to give?
you said you wouldn't stop, love,
but look where that got us
i'm broken and you don't even speak to me anymore
you don't even speak to me anymore

go on
spit me out
and forget about me
like that piece of gum
on the side of
the road.

fractured limbs/fragile lugs/soft-skinned dreams/sweet slow dances

loving you is like spilling gold out of my veins, like rose hips soft and shivering under warm fingertips. being yours is you being mine, but always reaching for you to be more.

in my stomach are glistening oceans, and my swallowed pride the size of vicodin pills. a small town girl's high on love and laying in her bed.

lilting laughter/lovely lights/revival of language & direction/return of lucid daydreams

you are my first thought when i wake, and my last when i fall asleep. i'm so very in love with you. the more days i spend being your girl, the more i want to be with you.

i always want to be where you are. my head on your shoulder, you rest your head on top of mine. we're holding hands, and it's like we fold into each other like russian dolls.

comfortable skin/crushed sapphire/lovers blessed/lush bones

my hands are always cold
but not when they're interlaced
with yours.

something about us is right.
i'm drowning in your light.

i never thought drowning
would be this nice.

it's almost like we
glow in every moment now
i feel like we're stars

i didn't think i had the ability to ponder possibility anymore. but here i am, laying in bed, thinking of the future. i want to offer you, and only you, forever. however long forever lasts, (i wouldn't know i've never been) you can have mine.

we're floating in air
our feet never touch the ground
my heart knows the way

split into a better person i want to empty my veins and give you all i've got. i want you to see that time is endless. with you, i am suspended in time. although, we could have every day for the rest of our lives, but that still wouldn't be enough for me. i want eternity- is that too much?

i want careful love
but i also want to be reckless
i'll blossom for you

you say that you don't want to leave me, so you want to go, in two years to college in-state. i love that i'm someone that you want to change the path you take for. two years is a long time from now though and i'm scared we're too young to plan that far ahead. i'm scared of everything these days.

i'm afraid your mind
will change the moment my eyes
are closed - scared to blink

i was drowning in your galaxies of blue.
blue so pale- like your    e   y   e  s
when i swore i could feel them on me but
you weren't there.
i was drowning in your galaxies
in which the stars would shine
shine bright / bright light / bright white light / pale bright white light-
not like printer paper in the sun
more like the pigment of your skin
in the moonlight.

i didn't mind. drowning didn't seem
so bad.
because even though i felt awful and sad, i
also felt loved,
and that was so very pretty to me
as a poet. as a lonely star amidst
constellations.

you almost said the "l" word
a total of (probably) seven times in the five
long-short months that
we were almost lovers.
i actually said the "l" word
a total of five times.
twice as a half joke, hoping you'd pick up
where i slacked in clarity but never
in sincerity
and three times (thrice) in my goodbye
in which i beheld these self-evident truths:

that the almost (always almost) meant
that we could never be lovers
and i thought that i'd prefer us to be nothing to each
other but maybe friends.

(maybe, maybe, maybes make me want to wish on stars
but not the ones in your eyes)

and although time flies
i'm still somehow drowning in your galaxies
of blue.

and i wonder if its killing me
slowly
as your stars blink
and i'm gone
when they open their eyes.
*almost.

i read your poems, but i can't read you.
what's the point?

other boys, they call me pretty-
well,
sometimes they do.
but still,
other boys, they touch my hand,
they like my hair,
they think i'm funny.
but they're not you,
and that rips me up.

the boy who once said i'm not his type
doesn't think
you are good
for me.
but
he doesn't know you.
he doesn't know
your pretty
folded
inside out
folded
right side out,
folded
into the pit
of my stomach, giving me butterflies.
oh, my god, i think this is what love feels like
when you’re stuck on the rewind
of a cassette tape,
because the player
doesn’t auto-stop,
and you don't feel like getting up,
so the tape snaps or tangles or knots.
either way it can’t be the same ******* song,
it sounds too different to be.
warbled.

but the beat is the same.
it starts off slow then speeds up
as the eyes get bluer
and her cheeks get warmer.
tha. thump. tha. thump.
tha thump. tha thump.
thathumpthathumpthathump.

if you love me, baby, just say so.
because i’m so brand new,
i’m so full of darkness.
you’re so ruggedly smooth,
so full of lightning.
i’m so brand new,
that i can’t read you like your poems.
i’m so full of darkness,
that i can’t feel loved anymore.
but, baby, baby, bubby.
i could love you like a poem.

i’ll be the body electric.
(i love as hard as a whitman)
i’ll be the master, the dream, the fool.
(i love as illogically as a kipling)
i’ll be immortal.
(i’ll love as sweetly as a dickinson)
i’ll be everything
you’ve ever read about and wanted,
if you’d just come clean.

so if you love me
if you love me
come clean.

if i was tinier, i could float away, heavier, i could stand my ground. but until then, i'll just have to stick with being in a limbo between stuck in a ditch and too far gone.

you. you should be nothing to me but the paint chipping off the wall, the broken blind hanging on just barely, the glow in the dark sticker just peeling off the ceiling. but you're not. you are 'i love you' written in the notebook of mine that i keep on the shelf. you're gone too soon in the trail of my mind, you're i love you, i miss you, and 'what the heck is wrong with me?' what's wrong with me?



i grew up in the peach state
back in a small town
where nobody knew your name
unless you were someone
and i wasn't anyone
not anyone important anyway

ooh, take me back to the summer babe
ooh, 'cause everybody knew my name
when i was with you.
take me back, take me back to june

i grew up in a small house,
back in a small town,
where georgia was on your mind
unless you wanted to leave
half of us wanted to leave
leave old georgia behind

ooh, take me back to the summer babe
ooh, 'cause everybody knew my name
when i was with you.
take me back, take me back to june



the floor has started to puddle with my teenage angst that's dripping down the wall and it sticks to my con-clad feet and later to my fingers, and i think this mess is what i got myself into, but i can always get myself out.

my hair is laced with flowers and my mind has gone. i've spent so much time trying to turn pollen into pixie dust, and one day, as i was singing nursery rhymes, i swear the butterflies led me somewhere like my home.

my heart is heavy enough to restrict me from flying.
bathtub full of flowers, mind filled with honey, honey, honey.

peter pan will grow up to be an old man working a desk job, and hamlet ends up in a place between the depths of heaven and hell. even god doesn't know what to do with them anymore.  he's got no clue for me either for my mind has gone.

white gown and angelic smile, i'll sing to you until you remember.
forever means nothing if you just age until you're a particle of dust.

i have remembrances of you, remnants of you. they're tattooed to my prefrontal cortex, and they cloud my judgement. my mind has gone. love isn't real, but i see signs anywhere i look, and they're singing nursery rhymes.

my fingers start to prune, and i duck my head under the water.
it's only for a while, now. father i won't be long.

she who wanted to be
more
than a pretty face
and soft skin

/

nothing more
than a fading
daydream-
sick

doll face
lavender thighs
rose gold heartbeat
alternate endings tracing cheekbones
like broken glass
your sawdust jawline

summertime soiree
knee-buckling faith
a mouthful of metaphors
forevers
daisy chained couplets
some purple skylines

feathers
cotton
hushed loving between
celestial bodies
grapefruit and coconut sugar
closing time

deities not quite worshiped
revered
hightop/high heel
purple jolly rancher
dress and tie
fingertips

hips swaying from side to side
windchimes
music
moments
love or truth
now or never

healing
breathless
full of life
merry-go-round mindset
happy dizzy
revolve around the sun

i need you in order to water the baby’s breath
that grows inside of me,
trapped in my ribcage and collarbones.
i’m spilling over with harsh subliminal messages,
subconscious limits that make my skies
clouded.
but you are every colour,
a prism met with light reflecting the rainbow,
and somehow not only am i yours
but you are mine as well.
insistent, telling myself
that you are worth it-
all of the bitter heartache that will come.
nothing lasts forever.
miniature lifetimes,
taking over the whole.
you’re my little secret
but the world should
know you're mine.

you look at me again
you touch me
and i think i might
erode/
slip through
your fingers

knowing you won't let go
i drink my lavender tea
with agave nectar
so when you finally kiss me
you will taste
the gardens
you've planted

i can feel my heart race
like it's running somewhere
far away from here
and i decide
that it's running somewhere
with yours

nothing else matters

words like bullets.

i don't want them to hit me.
i don't want to bleed.

i don't want you to hurt me.
i don't want you to shoot.

i don't want
you to
wake up/
get out of bed/
get dressed/
look at me like that/
close your eyes/
turn around/
turn back/
speak/
turn around/
leave.

but your tongue's on
the trigger,
and my heart's beating fast.
and i'm closing my eyes,
counting seconds,
counting sheep
because you can't hurt me
when i'm asleep.

i won't feel a thing.

you're pulling the trigger
and my mouth is quieting the racing bullets,
but although they're muffled they still hit my ears,
the pain travelling to my heart.

i bite your tongue too hard
and you bleed into my mouth
and i try to forget that you said

"i'm sorry."

and i watch you,
everything in me
still.

everything in me
is
lifeless.

i bent my body into a canvas of pillared secrets, and opened my eyes into a land of streetlights and headlights, but never into stars. now i'm drunk on the light of the moon. literal moon-shine. don't look back, it says. don't look back. but i turn my headache head anyway until i am an owl, accompanied by the vastness of everything i'd forgotten.

your split-lipped compliments are
boulder-heavy with caramel
undertones,
while i’ve got my basic stardusted
collarbones
and dancing fingertips;
ink stained and lust-conforming.

you’re stitching your ideas
onto my cerebellum,
and as i cry ‘foul!’
you fly away like
you’re free.
spit speckled with blood
and my dna,
you laugh and cry and kiss
like you’re mine.

dreams are growing
like wild flowers, and babe they
make me itch for some sort
of way
to alleviate the pain.
but people claim,
that these moments
we spend are never going
to be more
than little discomfort
and i dare say
that they’re wrong.

my body is not weather proof.
it will wash away
in the rain,
so hold me under your umbrella
and keep me
by your side,
because that way
if all else fails
we’ll wash away
together.

i just want to go some place nice,
somewhere the sky is pretty- like you.
i want to be like you.
you know, i have a lot to give to the world i just-
don’t know what it is yet.
but i’ll get there. i promise i’ll get there.
until then my heart will be in that pretty place
there, the trees will be tall,
and it will always feel like autumn. warm,
but cool. and the leaves
will always be in those orange-red hues,
the water will stay so clear and blue, that
you will see little minnows when
you dip your toes into the creek.
i’m not used to living on the edge, i’m just living
and that’s alright with me,
because i don’t want to be someone
i am not.
i am careful.
i am not reckless.
in that pretty place, the sweet little people
will be in their sweet little homes.
although, some of them will not be home they
will just be in a house.
a house they wish was a home,
but it can’t be because
home is where the heart is and as pretty as that
little place is,
their hearts are not there.
their hearts, like mine, are elsewhere.
perhaps with the stars and their blinking lights,
or at the bottom of the sea,
where the pebbles are rough beneath your toes,
and you try to hold your breath forever
because you are no longer
in the shallows.
you are somewhere deeper.
i want to go some place the water is deeper,
and the people think clearly
through all of the fog
and it’s all pretty
like you.

give a moment of clarity to pull me out of the haze, won’t you? days have passed since i last remembered your name and even more have passed since i last forgot the scent of your clothes. your body is a synthetic imitation of a real one. i last saw you in a place you weren’t and that could be just because of a lack of some part of my sense i lost, i always was so forgetful.


define me this way: a monster of your making. the beauty you lost years ago when all you could mutter out of your chapped winter lips was please.


take me to a place where all the skies are blue, won’t you? days will come when i can’t really remember your name and even more will pass until the scent of your clothes become the scent of mine. your face is photocopy of an angel’s. i can see you in the puddle of the water, swimming with the tadpoles.


define me this way: no one important. everything you never really wanted to have.

my love for you is equal parts
messy
and lovely
like paint splattered
across a canvas
in pastel
colours

i.
moments are ephemeral
so i hold on tightly
to the closeness of you.
our arms linked together,
you keep bumping into me
and i keep colliding into
you.
it's as if we are stars,
and we make our own
little boom
in this sky.

we're almost a firework, honey.
we're almost-

ii.
hey.
long haired sweetheart,
golden boy of no where,
your halo is skewed,
but i bet you'd taste like lights.
you're the brightest
type of shine.
sure, you glow in the dark,
but you're glowing in the light too.
and they say,
you're brighter with me,
they say you are
just as smitten
as i am.

maybe we can make this work, honey.
maybe we can-

iii.
what if i was to paint you in indigo,
sew patches of
a blank night sky
onto your dimples,
and hang stars from your
butterfly lashes?
would you
let me sit on your lap like
it's a throne,
make me your
queen,
so that i can say i've made
the human form of night time
my lover.
king of hearts, conqueror of the day.

we hold on, because it heals our tired hurt, honey.
we hold on-

tell me a story, my dear, ill fated lover. my white dress floats in the bath water. i want you to stand next to the tub and tell me about the first time you saw me. you were a prince, and i just a girl. tell me about how you fell in love with my walk and my curled toes and my cinnamon smile. sickening spices. uniquity. grace.

biting my bottom lip, i ask if you will say hello again, blooming.
why is it that you always whisper goodbyes like autumn leaves?

you are catastrophic, and i a mad, young, silly girl. but you used to be perfect and i used to be wise, and our most promising traits are announced to the tides as i pull the drain stopper out. wait! i laugh. i put the stopper back into tub. row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream.

i’m wondering as you look at me with those empty eyes.
i wonder, if i know i have gone mad, am i mad after all?

i don’t see it in your eyes, my dear, ill fated lover. i only see death, death, death and love. you used to utter sweet words with warm breath in my ear. i’d dance for you until my back hurt and my heels were sore, until i wanted to cry and laugh, for you were so enthralled by the movements of my body. I don’t dance anymore. and your breath is cold, your words sour.

the tub overflows and i shut my eyes, although they beg to see.
will i laugh when you scream my name, saying you can’t swim?

it's easy to become lost within one's self.
picking apart one's skin until
old scars are ripped open.

but you bring me back.
god, do you bring me back.

your lips write me, like a poem.
your hands right me, like an old wrongdoing.

even when my blood has spilled
onto the floor, like ink to paper.
even when i cry, 'i have been alone!'

you bring me back.

scars will heal. but their mark will remain.
i tell you this, again and again.

but when my scars threaten to open,
and time travel to the past
is like an echo- it's so **** repetitive,

you bring me back.
god, do you bring me back.

unstill life with a peach pit.
//

i paint you in every colour before you leave my field of vision.
i spit out words i don’t understand like i love you, i need you.
you dance with me in my bedroom, spin me around until i’m blue
in the face, you say you love my glow in the dark, i say but you
shine brighter.

maybe we could sip on the cyanide in our peach pit smoothies
while i carefully contemplate? i don’t quite understand this but i dream
anyway because there’s nothing better than our flashlights.

i’ll make you a thousand mixtapes and we can dance to modern
day synth pop and we’ll feel like we’re in the eighties. i’m a nineties
baby i just made it there. syncopated words, and clever cacophony
spill out of my mouth, you’ve got my lip gloss on the corner of yours.
stay careful, i don’t know what any of this will mean in two weeks.

but, we’ll go out singing,

*baby, we’re golden,
baby, i’m holding
on to you.
baby we’re golden,
baby i’m holding
on.
baby, we’re golden
baby, we are,
we are,
we are...

everything is confusing. i don’t know what i want but i guess that’s okay.

( leaves look red in autumn because the chlorophyll in them is deconstructing. they aren’t really green that’s just the colour of the light they reflect. i feel like that’s so very curious. there’s something about biology, the living world. it’s not as strange as we thought it was so many years ago but it’s not as simple as we think it to be when we don’t think about it at all.)

true colours run deep within the veins of every leaf, but its only when it's insides are being ripped apart that they show.

this is not a paradox, this is the way the universe tells us who we are.

i wanted an angel.

peach flavoured love that dripped down my chin, lips covered in sugar.

i wanted passion.

to ascend unlonely through the cotton candy sky with all of its lovely whispers.

i wanted a muse.

someone to kiss and tell the world about as i bit my sugar dusted lip, and dreamed of their sunfilled mouth, and i wanted constant contact and all of the tell me you love me moments.

my fragile lungs would hardly be able to breathe in air as pure as the air that they'd breathe.

i wanted an angel to love until i became one. I needed love so badly that it would choke me with cold hands, frigid but still warm somehow.

i wanted guidance. to soar away from here.

i'm so afraid
of what comes next,
after the intense emotions and feeling high
after the thoughts of you being my lullaby.
(honestly i've fallen asleep thinking of you
smiling because of you,
every freaking night.)

but what if this is all
just a dream of mine
and it hasn't really come true?
what if i wake up to find,
that i have seemed to
have lost you?

i keep replaying
the way you said my name nervously,
the way your voice sounded
when you said you had a crush
on me, the way i wanted
to cry because my dreams never
ever come true the way i want them to.

so this must not be real.

but it feels so real, babe,
and that's what scares me the most.

blinding light's shining
coming from your direction
lighting up my world.

when i first met you,
you had a glow like no one
i had ever seen.

the first thing i saw,
cheeks warmed by hesitation
how would i reach you?

you: a stellar shine.
my heartbeat: a fading drum.
open doors- new love.

i'd cut off my tongue
to taste moon-like shine from yours,
to float / levitate.

everyone's so dull.
you are the best of outer space
shining towards me.

i rotate around you
your vividly bright starlight
your glow in the dark.

when i first met you
i knew that the light you'd shone
would be my first sight.

your light's has begun
my new luminous, pure life.
i see it from here.

You left your honey mouth in the cupboard, so
today your words are fogged glass
Don't you ever ponder upon the bruises you leave?
stained glass is considered art,
but it's not until you put it somewhere
to be admired that people know.
I saw you from a mile away-
like a kitchen fire
and someone's (dead) body.
But you were humming that melody
that made me seasick with its radio waves, and
made me burn bright with shame.
I always thought that maybe you'd see your
reflection in the puddles at your feet,
and that you'd try to change it
with your rain boots, dip them in the unwelcome depictions.
But I know that you'd continue on with your life,
saying that the reflected you was nothing
that you were something. You, in flesh, in spirit
You claimed you emptied your bones and filled
them with pebbles so you'd be grounded, when really,
you were just stuck in a rut,
smelling of sea water,
trying to get some sleep.
I tell myself that you were not wicked,
but why else couldn't you rest?
You sip your lemon tea
out of a little ceramic bowl,
telling me it tastes better that way,
but you weren't always all sour mouth
and sharp tongue.
You used to be fragile like a storm,
and wild as a starlit night,
diving, with the bruises painting you a melody
you couldn't hear, but saw
nonetheless.