i will never love you as much as i love the silence of my neighborhood right now that reminds me that although it's lovely not to hear from my usually loud neighbors, it's gruesome to hear absolutely nothing from you. the sound of your voice is more comforting than any quiet. i find more peace in your laugh than anything.

i will never love you as much as i love the snow covering the ground. this may be because i am so used to the feeling of frostbite that i have become numb to the pain and i am more grateful for the loss of my sensitivity than i am for the loss of your toxicity.
i still hope you know that neither i or the snow intended to harm you and we apologize if we did, although i'm not sure what the **** i could have possibly done but care about you more than i knew i ever could.

i will never love you as much as i love flowers and my books and the feeling of cold water running over freezing hands and green tea settling in an empty stomach and watching children truly enjoy the limited years they have until their first heartbreak when they stop finding joy in the little things and think it can only be found in the mouths of people who fed them lies like you fed me promises but in reality their tongues are snakes and their saliva is venom and they are as dangerous as the amount of alcohol they put in their bodies so they can feel something or maybe they don't want to feel anything at all because these cuts are not wounds on our knees that can be healed with bandages and antibiotic ointments. these are cuts on our wrists as deep as the sea would we be willing to drown in for someone who will never feel the same way for us as we do them and our upper thighs that we wish were as thin as our hearts.

i will never love you as much as i love the smell of old paper and stage lights and pointe shoes and gliding through the air or across a wooden floor of the dance studio i feel terrible for betraying by thinking i could find a home in you when my home is in the mirrors that i criticize my body i should have never let you defile in and the floor that has always caught me when i felt i was falling over the edge even when i didn't want it to because all i wanted was you.

i will always try to love myself more than you loved me

Your eyes-
coal black fire
mirrors of my desire

Your mouth-
warm bath of oaths
bespoken for

Your *******-
rouged red-bullet tipped
honeysuckled bliss

Those hips-my reins
move you the way
I need you most

and your kiss-
like a hiss from a dip
of a branding iron

burn me with your lips
and make me yours-
ride me into the abyss

-of sighs.

r ~ 9/25/14

Sunup
expectations low-
another day aimed my way

- till the sky became
a color never named
and changed my world - again,

a new day.

r ~ 10/12/14

today i took a trip through the meadows to remind
myself of what the grace of auburn leaves felt like
to the pallet of my eyes.