I want to hold you
with pages and ink.

Acid in my lungs,

I can feel the chemical reaction

burning up my atoms:

bubbling
                         boiling
                                                bursting

in my chest.

I'm coming apart

in your hands.

His voice trails off like
a soft caress.
I can almost hear
the tremble on his lips
at the close;
the vibrations reverberating
through my ears.

I can't escape the darkness
of his terrible stare,
the determination burned into
the black stars of his eyes.

It makes me want to fall apart,
that gravitational pull
like a hook through my ribs,
caught on my lungs.

I can feel that damp, course grass beneath my feet.
I'm nauseous again, in that place again.
I can feel their eyes on my veins,
I can feel him, breathing on my neck,
I can hear him laughing.

It's dizzying, sickening,
like blaring white noise
screeching from a broken radio.

It's an itch that crawls down my arms,
a hand around my throat that tells me to stop breathing;
to stop fighting.

I want to give in.
I want to bleed again.
To feel the metal scrape through all my layers
and cut me open.

I want to cut it all away.

You're my dream,
my immutable love.

Do you ever feel the ice
wrap tight around your chest?
Its long, bone-thin fingers
fill the gaps between your ribs;
you feel those nails,
familiar as an old friend,
rake across your skin.

I can feel him trace
the chill along my spine.
His whispers
raising the hairs of my neck,
as his darkness cloaks my eyes.

Do you ever feel him?
His devil's grin against your cheek;
that cruel, cold laughter
stealing your breath away.

It's heavy now;
swirling black air that clogs your lungs.
It's almost narcotic,
the way its smoke vines
creep in through your nostrils
to suffocate your mind.

You can feel its heat
erasing your own fingerprints;
seeping through your tangled veins;
reaching into your heart
to burn a black hole in your very core.

As you inhale,
it ignites your vision.
You open your eyes
and the world is red;
you open your mouth
and release Hell's fire.