The spaces between these six walls are cold and tight but your blue skin spits--
Marbles of sweat appear on the surface of your eyes, bags of amethyst, circles of mauve.

White hot amber muscle covets your pupils, no bigger than that pin they've spent eternity looking for in some haystack and I wonder if they will ever see me again.

Long quivering exhales draw attention to your shallow rising chest.
I can hear you choking on something, something as you lay among our mother’s silverware and a coiled leather snake, constricting, suffocating your pale forearm.

My eyelids slam shut, whose eyelashes like fingers clutching each other for dear life—desperately trying to spare me from what they believe I might see.

Usually your eyelids squint after being forced upward by your cheeks--forced upward by your cunning grin but they do not squint now.
Last month we hadn't spoken in a month but you held your hand out and asked me if I wanted the world as if it wasn't written all over my face.

I feed off of your charisma like I've never eaten before like I've never felt the sadness that accompanies forgiving you knowing it will only be for a month. I’m replacing your anguish with sugar pills—I consume by putting pills in your mouth, and I’m begging you to hold them down even if it takes both hands.

You can’t speak, but I can hear you—struggling to swallow all of the glass placed quietly between the walls of your throat—a new piece left everyday, by every day you said not today.

I knew we were poison when loving you started to look a lot like hating myself.

And when I could no longer consume without without tasting the bite of your venom.

I just woke up in my house,
on my couch,
in your jacket.
I called everyone who called me last night,

and no one answered.

I lay here praying no one died.
Or killed themselves.

"You look like you got ran over by a truck."
Thank you.
I'm getting run over by something.
It kind of feels the same.
But it's not a truck.

is it okay
to rename
a lost
dog?

There is something much quieter then sleep
For her to wish it every single day
She wears the morning upon her cheek
Her bones shivering beneath                                    
A faint dry sound cracks the air
Thicker than rain and hail
The trees are painted rubies
As blood red as shattered eyes
Hiding the truth beneath blue
In which sets these autumn skies
Drowning in the fumes of death
Her hair soft lifted in the wind
Sinking her everlasting grin

Allow me to make a confession:

I did steal.
(I did not know.)

At the time, I was
waiting outside a
wedding hall.
She
was listening:
to engines idling,
the muffled sound
of music.
She was beautiful,
graceful;
she lit a cigarette -
noticed me -
and her feet
were bare.
She offered no indication
that she felt it.

She wore sunglasses and smoked.

I did steal.
I sat outside,
and I did steal.

I did not know.

I am a heavily folded
sheet of stationery.
A Roman
nobleman.
She is
so
so
sick.
You are
Shakespeare;
you are
wrong.
It took me
f o r e v e r
to decode:
The fault is
NOT
in our stars,
but in
ourselves.

She is a letterhead.
She is in
my empty bed.
She is
enough.

So, tell me boy with the cerulean eyes, do you remember our first kiss? You stained my mouth with a sunset. You left your name on the roof of my mouth and I haven’t shut up about you since. You left me sitting alone in the library. You left me picking dandelions. Nobody told me dandelions aren’t a flower. Nobody ever told me that maybe you didn’t love me. I just thought, “how could someone kiss like that and not be in love with me?” But you didn’t love me, I know that for sure. It hurts to leave someone you love, even if it’s just for a day, it aches to be without them. Now I’m stuck with your sunset in my mouth and any boy after you who thinks they want to kiss me will taste your name and vanilla. I think you should apologize to the next boy who thinks he wants to get to know me. He doesn’t. He doesn’t. He doesn’t. Getting to know me means getting to know you. God, I wanted to love you so badly. I wanted to kiss the corners of your mouth and listen to all your secrets. I hate you for ******* that up. I hate you for giving me the worst case of writers block known to man. I hate you for being my muse. I hate you for kissing me so hard that I thought the trees were talking. I loved you so much and now it’s not the same and I hate you for making me question my love. I hate that you felt the need to raise your voice to tell me you didn’t love me anymore. As if I needed to be hurt anymore. I love you only always. And I think that’s the worst part, dandelion boy.

I spent my time tying pink ribbons to my words hoping somebody would untether them.
Hoping someone would listen to my cherry flavored cough syrup poems.
I wandered around thinking up the type of person who might love me;
gentle, caring, soft and quiet.

Then you came along.

And you could undo any knot imaginable if you were given enough time.
You hated cherry flavored cough syrup and you didn’t understand poetry.
You spoke so fast sometimes I wondered if you even knew what you meant.
But you always listened to my rambles as if I were telling you the cure for cancer.

I went about my days wondering how I could have overlooked someone such as yourself.
It only took me twenty minutes to decide I only wanted you to listen to me talk.
I could taste vanilla on your lips and I wasn’t even kissing you.
I laid on my bedroom floor for hours on end wondering how it might feel to love someone like you.

I fell in love with you on March 10, 2013 when you laced my left skate.
You had a laugh like an early morning songbird; a benevolent smile as if it were always spring.
You kept talking nervously about your hands until I held them and you went silent.
This was the first day I ever thought about kissing you. From then on, I haven’t stopped.

You haven’t stopped knocking the wind out of me since.

You touched my thigh underneath the table and I think I knew then that I was done for.
We kissed on the ferris wheel and you tasted like vanilla wafers.
I think your name is stuck on the roof of my mouth because I haven’t shut up about you since.
(I hope it always stays there.)

You’re like the first warm days of spring after a harsh winter.
You’re so alive and it’s refreshing for me; who forgot what air tasted like.
I want to plant a garden in your heart and watch it grow peacefully.
I want to tangle myself within your vines; wrap myself within your liveliness.

But no matter how ardently I loved you, it was never enough.
There was always a misapprehension with us, a broken line, a word that threw off the entire poem.
I am not afraid of many things, but losing you frightened me to the point of madness.
I didn’t mean to shut the door in your face, I really wanted you to stay. I truly did.

You hated when I said maybe so I started saying it to every yes or no question you asked.
It was the little things that changed; you said my name like it was rotting in your mouth.
Our last kiss tasted like rubbing alcohol and I wanted to kiss you again just to remove the flavor.
I wonder what went was going through your head while I was breaking. (Where’s the glue?)

How little you notice when someone is here; how much you notice when their absence approaches.
The freckle on your right wrist, the quiet way you read a book, how you talk to yourself when you’re nervous.
You touched my hair like my mother did, but you left a deeper scar than my father ever could.
No slamming doors, just a quiet magic trick that left me wondering if you were ever here.

I didn’t want to show up on your doorstep years later in tears because I forgot to tell you... you’re breathtaking.
I forgot to tell you, the stars detonate because they’re trying to imitate your eyes when you laugh.
I forgot to tell you, your touch could heal an open wound in under thirteen seconds.
But it’s been a year and I still haven’t explained how afraid I am to love you.

We met again and your voice was deeper and your eyes were colder.
You still laughed at my jokes but it was quiet and aloof.
Is that the way she likes you best? Vague and jejune?
I never wanted to treat you like a poem; never wanted red ink to touch your stanzas.

Given the chance, I would love you all over again- and right this time.
I would catch your hair glistening in the sunlight and tell you, “you’re wondrous.”
I have spent a good portion of forever writing you into poetry.
I cannot apologize for not letting go, you’ve always been home.

Love me or not, you’ll always have arms to hold you, ears to listen to you babble, lips to kiss you foolishly.
Carry on, carry on, you’ve never been any less than extraordinary to me.
I can feel how alive you are, you’re more human than I will ever be.
(I love you only always.)