scrambling
                       desperate to
                    get the words on
                          paper.
Hands as a leaf
I cannot fathom how
Intimately
    She and I are linked.

From the start we were kismet,
connecting on a level that
  would astound all those
    passing.

Two patrols of the night
couldn't even shatter the glass menagerie
We built to house our
    broken identities.

I stumble through chaos to
find the foggy mirror
to peer
and view her lipstick
   stained on my chin.

And desperately wait for
midday,
midweek,
   When I can see her beautiful lashes again.

Intimately I want to
Know her, more than
the FIVE FAST FACTS
that stretched into
the perfect first date.

She is the one who fills this page back to front
and

Makes my entire body crumble and crave her like
my next cigarette

I cannot stop shaking
    She will steady me,
My
Abby.

I look at them and want to be all skin and bones
i am healthy and full and quite padded
forever wanting to satisfy myself
i tire of wanting to be less than i am

remnants of smoke still

drifting out of my ears but

even the beautiful spirals

can't push away the images

of you dancing naked in my

closet or snatching the last

bit of ******* even though

you don't even like jam you

were always taking the bits

of me that i wanted most and

all that's left now are the vestiges

of an empty shell how cliche,

how mediocre is it that you're

gone and i'm left here wrapped in

your flannel smoking the very stuff

i swore would **** you but you

managed to do that first didn't

you i always let you take those

bits of me that mattered most

because i looked at you

and all i could see within the

fractured hull that was your skin

was darkness but i could tell you

were building a whole person

deep in there with my scraps

i could hear the echoes of a scream

that wasn't yours but i didn't realize

until i got the call last tuesday that i

could wail in the exact tone and

frequency of those echoes funny

how grief works, you were dying

the whole time and i didn't even

notice you were fading, but now

that you're gone i can't get you

out of my head

waves of lines caress the wall
dripping until they leave a trail that
looks like tears the blood’s fallen
from his fingers for the final time
figurines smashed to

smithereens and i’m at a loss
for words i’ve always been told
i have a knack for
eloquence but when he walked
up to me with his

wrists the shade of my favorite
lipstick and said
"finally my veins can feel
the air” all i could say
was “what a mess you’ve made”
i cleaned him up again and packed
him up for

the house again but i pray
and hope and wish
that they can help him more
than i ever could
i love him to bits but this
love is breaking me
apart.

My fingers smell like nicotine again and I don’t think I mind

I want someone to share these cold mornings with and to warm my toes when the air refuses to stop biting. I want someone who won’t mind my incessant need to trace the curves of their ribs or to learn how their body feels when my fingers grace their calves. I want someone who doesn’t need me to be whole all the time because I’m cracked at the edges and remember there is that one big split right down the middle that is pretty difficult to mend back together. I want someone who doesn’t think I’m pretentious because I write poetry at 11 am on a Saturday. I want someone who cries when they laugh so I can see the real depths of their emotional psyche. I want someone who will appreciate me for the ****** up mess I turn myself into but also for the beauty that I’ve been told I contain. I want someone to be the person to me that I could be to them.

Our friction is something I need right now