You are a soft quiet pulsing
a slow sip of lukewarm coffee in the morning
the gentle caress of bathwater over skin

you are the rain in summer
the steady hum of an overhead fan

you are the melting liquid in a lava lamp
a candle in a windowsill

you are 5 am sunlight
the gentle wind that blows through hair
the first inhale of a just lit cigarette

you are a day of rest

you put your hand on my chest while you kissed me
and said you felt my heartbeat in your palm
like a gentle orb

and here I always thought I was
a gunshot in a back alley outside of a bar
just another unsolved ******

I am ripped plastic
an open landfill
I am blood dripping on tile

but I find I like your insistent denial

I’m fascinated by the way your faulty intestines
rest on the insides of your ribs when you lay on one side
and the way my spine tries to rip its way out of my back

I want to know why my shoulder blades feel as if
one day they will become wings
and allow me to fly away

I’ve wanted to be somewhere else for a long while now
my feet don’t really seem to fully hit the ground anymore
I am a vortex gaining speed

and they say getting hit by lightning twice is so highly improbable
but what happens when I am struck by lightning every night

what does it mean when I wake up covered in blood
and desperate for something unnamed
something that hides out in my dreams

and all I’ve ever wanted was a few answers

like if there is a god why does he allow hell on earth
because I’ve been burning at the stake ever since I turned 7

and this charred flesh of mine feels like acid
and tastes like asphalt

this little body does not feel like home

there's a buzzing in this spine
and a nervous rattling in this skull

We both love things like creeping ivy
we swallow it all whole

I once broke your jaw in my sleep
because I dreamt it would make you soft-spoken

and I feel like a bull barreling down a thin hallway
and you are sleek black paint jobs

and I am just your unexpected ****** nose
spilling out onto the pavement and
dripping on your pressed button up shirt

I am this acid on your tongue slowly melting
and you wish I’d do it quicker
because I leave a bad taste in your mouth

and im sorry for that

I never meant to step on your toes with my
heavy boots
and this 35 pound heart

and this skin that seems to grow and fade from view
because I am in the midst of becoming invisible

and just last Thursday I walked through my first wall

But I guess you would know a thing or two about that

because I haven't seen you in over two months
so would you tell me where you disappeared to?

I have this antifreeze in my veins
I have icicles wrapping around my kidneys
and you thought you were the only one with a disease

I’m ******* the air out of your lungs
and nothing has ever tasted so sweet on my tongue

and I’m just trying to breathe you in

and sometimes I’m scared I will eat your skin
sometimes I think I'll cut my eyes on the glass in your smile

they say Betelgeuse will explode someday
and yet it is the brightest star in the sky

They say one in 25 people is a psychopath
and I think you most certainly are one

I could say you are an emotional terrorist

you bit the hand that fed you

you are like a stray dog that is unaware of its situation;
you still think you have a home

you are a hungry wolf limping in winter-
you snarl only out of spite

when you breathe in smoke
you inhale like you are begging for cancer

you inhale like a rough drag can bring you hope

1- Alex S
You were a rough hit to the stomach
a cold and ***** baptizing
I ****** you twice and never again
because of you I stopped eating
I haven’t seen you since I was 14
and that’s okay with both of us

2- Alex F
Your name still gives me chills
you remind me of a fox in winter
I really did love you like the waves love the ocean shore
I really would have drowned myself for you
im sorry I took your virginity

3- JJ S
It was a drunken hookup on a ***** couch
in a smoke filled basement that I had to sneak out of later
and you were 27 and should have known better
and it was really just too awful to talk about

4- Garrett F
In a Chinese restaurant parking lot at 9 pm
we used your backseat like it had
rose petals and candles
and you were my best friend
and it’s still one of my biggest regrets
and we stopped speaking after that

5- Michael H
Really I just wanted the free ****
and a place to spend the night
so, did you enjoy the taste of my tall black soul
that tends to smell of tar
and the dredges of a coffee ***?

6- Julian R
I don’t know the first thing about you
besides the fact you are from New York
and 25
and play basketball for a college
and you pushed me down on the bed
and swallowed me whole

7- Sean E
It was Halloween
and we were drunk
and we undressed in the back of someone’s jeep
and laid under the stars at 4 am on a blanket in a backyard
the first time you were ever inside me

8- Johnny B
24 and never someone I’d normally ****
but I stayed at your house for 2 weeks
and we became connected on every piece of furniture
and I still never got enough of you
and god I miss you

9- Aaron E
You are the end of it all
and with you I am butter melting
I am grinding my teeth down in lust
I’ve never seen anyone look so perfect naked
and I’m wishing you were the only one in this list

i turned away so i wouldn't
have to watch you leave, but
i heard your car start and
i panicked

how do i breathe without you,
how do i breathe without,
how do i breathe?

nobody warns you about the first boy who tells you he wants to marry you.

nobody warns you about the tangible shift in the universe when he parts his lips to smile.

nobody warns you about the poetry he'll write you or how your knees will weaken or the melancholy hidden between the layers of his laughter.

nobody warns you that miles will morph into lightyears and you will curse the ocean for being the only thing that keeps his fingers from resting between yours.

nobody warns you about the day his sweater doesn't smell like him anymore.

nobody warns you that human hands are incapable of holding a person together.

nobody warns you that sometimes love is not enough, no matter how much you wish it was.

nobody warns you about the crippling nostalgia that renders you breathless.

nobody warns you about the nights when silence screams for your blood.

nobody warns you about the crater that forms in your chest in the middle of the night when he doesn't answer.

nobody warns you about how it's going to feel when he tells you he's in love with someone else.

nobody warns you that forever is a lie.

- m.f.

You tripped over my exhale
I plummeted into your anxiety
my tongue was twisted in your head
as I breathe in your vibe of misfit disparity
surrender deafen'd my equilibrium
in your attempt to polish our symmetry
checks & balances fell like insufficient collateral
wound up in a flaming well of a dried wicked asylum
inky promises that were deferred as charged
negotiations postponed without further adieu
locked and vault'd as another lunaticism lesson learned