"my hands are
nothing more than
     things that need fixing,"
he tells himself with a bitter tongue


but in
the bleak morning
soft smoke curls around his
daydreams,
his eyes painted lost shades
of crimson and wanting;
the brief, sweet exhale of
maybe tomorrow escapes
his lips

- just before he realizes that
this moment                 alone
has become his greatest
nightmare

the bruise of the night hangs under us
anxiously; a brilliantly crisp, sharp curve
of dark onto pale that breaks my line of
vision momentarily, because this was
never what i wanted for us.


"i wanted..." an honest wish, spilling
into the air with such fear and regret that
my lungs swelled at the idea of it because
i still hope that maybe i could be
something like that, for you.


you talk like you're trapped inside of a dark
cloud, threatening to pour out thunderstorms
of secrets and insecurities to nearly anyone
who asks, and i know i never told you,
but i know exactly how that is.


in the walls of your home i often feel like i
might melt into the long-dried paint, maybe cave in
awkwardly and suddenly and then you'll just stare,
close-****** and wondering when i became
such an utter mess of a person.


maybe you could fit into my walls, just right;
i could maybe fold down some of your corners
just the right way and - there - you'd snap
right into place, just like all
the others never could.


i'd like it if somehow thoughts like these could
swallow us up entirely, and yesterdays would
only be a shiver of a memory to us any longer,
like maybe this could feel a little
bit like holding oxygen.


i am slipping so slowly this time, it's
different than ever before, and that's perhaps
the most frightening part of it all: my fingers
are slipping from the edge of sanity
with such a slow sureness.


and there you go, ripping into my life at the
seams, bringing in hushed stories like foreign
patterns to hover between my eyes - because
eventually you'll make me lose my mind,
but in the best way.

often times sitting beside you
makes my mind terribly fragile,

something created only to be
broken.

  my mind will drift until
the world is shrill violins
pleading for an answer.
  until the world is
made up of the unsure
peaks of mountains,
like the faint whispering
of winter come november.
  the world becomes quick
footsteps on hot pavement,
or uneven shadows of glass,
spinning into my vision until
my eyes can no longer see.

my mind becomes so many things,
the world refreshing. an exhale.

the world is a miraculous thing,
sitting beside you.

my shaking, unsure fingers yearning for this    
    mythical love in places i could never find    

and i could see the hope of our creator
swimming through your bones in such
an effortless way, it had single-handedly
been one of the most beautiful things
i've ever seen bleed through someone.          

      the curve of your smile getting caught on    
    the eighteen sharpest edges of my heart    

you seemed anxious but in a good way
and i'd never seen you like that before, but
seeing you standing there, with fast lips
and screaming eyes, was quite possibly the
moment i knew i was gone. so far gone.          

      my anxious, scarred palms blindly dreaming    
    that i am not nearly as alone as i appear    

there were a number of things i had found
hidden underneath the several layers of
your soul, still tearing a bit at some of the
edges, but you still somehow managed
to hold your irises up to the stars.          

      the slow blink of your eyes when you realize    
    i could maybe be something like everything

"we could, we could..."


this kept me running up and down
that dreaded staircase for hours
on end and i held you so tightly
but you were always so far away




there wasn't a chance for me to show you who i was at all;

i could only be the girl that brushed past your side in a hurry
the girl who always bit her bottom lip and turned the other way
the girl who held her breath every time you shared the same air
the girl who thrived on smiles meant for someone else entirely





and
i kept
climbing
that same
staircase in
my mind up and
down over and over
again and prayed that
something much stronger
than myself would send me
toppling to the very bottom





  you didn't care when the rain carried me briskly down sidewalks,
crumbling my skin to an ash-like texture that could be compared
to my hopelessness or forgetfulness
  you weren't burdened with haunting thoughts of me every night,
like the way your voice always seems to bleed in my brain and
wander through my unconscious soul
  you didn't seem phased when i hiccuped your name in the softest
of voices in that dark place, my hands blindly searching for yours
even though you were merely steps away
  you weren't paying attention when i screamed into the storms
that i needed you, so loud that my lungs seemed to scratch at
my insides with the thought of us



i suffocated myself with these unsealed promises
that maybe, one day,
    we could,
  we could...




there was nothing separating us any longer -
not the thinest layer of fear or hesitance,
or the thickest layer of painful longing

we were wide open and free to break each others
bones and souls as much as we wanted to, but
there had never been a single imaginary string of
connection to hold our misguided hearts together,
so we fell apart before we even began.







  people keep telling me
      we could, we could...


so i quickly reversed back into my old habits of self-loathing
and inhaling gaping holes of doubt and holding onto things
that simply didn't want me as much as i wanted them

these things came so naturally; tugging at my insides in
ways i wasn't sure how to deal with anymore because they
were asking questions that i didn't know the answer to

then my bookshelf collapsed quicker than i could ask how you
were feeling that day so the question was never asked at all
but i knew all the things you didn't want me to know already

i needed a lampshade big enough to hide the possibility of us
under, because it illuminated my endeavored nights and i don't
know if i wanted you to know about that just then

things suddenly changed for me when my throat closed up
and i couldn't speak and my headaches became studded with
all of these memories that barely even existed for us

my arms wanted you more than my heart ever did, but the more
i tried to ignore them the more twisted and unforgiving my arms
became, giving out in the most inconvenient of times





i can finally see that
you could never see
anything in someone like
me,





we never
could

(i will listen
to your bones
shatter when
you fall apart)





you don't deserve any of this,
and i don't want you to let go

i don't want you to let go but i
know that's out of my hands





you deserve milky ways
running through your veins
at night and black holes
swallowing up every
ounce of your sorrows


you deserve soft evenings
and quiet mornings holding
your ribcage together instead
of your too-skinny arms


you deserve an arm
always linked with yours,
taking you to somewhere
foreign and beautiful
but eternally yours


you deserve the tallest ferris
wheels shooting you into the
clouds for journeys to the
ever-mended hearts


you deserve feeling
worth something more than
mix tapes that need rewinding
or the unmanageable tangled
chains of forgotten





(i will listen
when words fail
and you forget
how to speak)





you deserve upside
down umbrellas carrying
you down the flowing rivers
of the most exhilarating
corners of the universe


you deserve to run
simply because you want to,
not because you feel like
you have no other choice


you deserve the will
to hold on even when shards
of glass pierce your lungs,
because the scars will
show your strength


you deserve endless ribbons
lacing through your heart
with the hope of tomorrow
morning or the next


you deserve to love
without exceptions or
limits and to dream of
disappearing into things
much bigger than yourself





you deserve all these things,
and i want them for you

i want them for you but i
know i can't give them to you





(i will listen
even when you
have nothing
to say to me)

while you ran around screaming 'save me'
at the top of your lungs i sat in the
darkest corner of my bedroom and wrote
four letter words on my palms with the
blackest of inks until they all ran
together and were hardly words anymore

lostgonehometakeweakmoreliesquitpoor
doneleapneargainfal­lracesanewontstop




the other day i felt hopeless because someone asked me what was wrong
and i didn't know so i tore down each of the sparkling snowflakes from
the sky one by one, not even giving them the chance to hit the ground

and sometimes i write poetry backwards or with my eyes tightly shut
because doing things the wrong way is the only thing i've ever been good at

i spent so long in my bedroom in the hallways in the classrooms
in the bathroom stall in the eyes of people who pretended i was
happy,

so quiet so quiet
(nowadays...)



"where has your voice gone?"
i didn't speak to anyone
for four days after you
did that and eventually
my voice box imploded



"where has my heart gone?"
you didn't love anyone
for four years after she
did that and eventually
your heart imploded




all i've become is a
sack of brittle bones
that screams stories
and i build them up
in my chest until i tell
them to people who
let their minds wander
far too long on their
lovers or pretty clothes
or their nice hair or
perfect grades

"what's wrong?"

and then suddenly i turn
into a carousel that
never stops spinning
round and round
don't let go you
don't know for
sure when it will
stop (can't stop -
won't stop ;
when does
all time
stop?)

i promised myself
that stories that
didn't deserve to
be told would never
be allowed to softly
bleed through my
bones and fade into
the pigment of my
skin

but that's just one of
the many lies i told myself
over and over again,
isn't it?




once my insides have been bleached of all color and joy and life
once my lips can't be bothered to speak - to try - to lie to you
once my dark hair falls flat and my eyes slowly fade to gray
once my fingers become too cold to touch anymore - to hold anymore
once my knees give out when i'm standing at the top of the stairs
once my arms forget how to hold you - to hold myself - together

will you love me?
maybe then,
will you try to love me?







so quiet so quiet