One day
I'll break open a bottle of champagne
And look back on all this
Like a crazy story
Something that happened to
Someone else
A stranger
A different life I left in a pile of
Ash
But today
I'm hurling myself off a cliff
Not knowing if I'll sprout wings
Or crash

I will keep crossing out
The tender lines
And the soft words
And all the evidence of how badly
I just want to be seen
So that I can keep lying to myself
I am playacting a version of me
Whose heart doesn't jump for anyone
And doesn't ache to be gathered close
And if I can just keep on pretending
Maybe one day
It will be true

I have always told my troubles to the moon
Offered up saltwater sacrifice
That I might learn how to face the light of day
Unafraid
Each sunrise would find me fitful
Restless with an ache I didn't know how to soothe
Stumbling and shrinking and
Cowed by the weight of expectation

When I was ready to open my very veins to the night
The moon insisted
I stop making sacrifices alone in the dark
Under her watch
I suddenly heard the relentless ticking of every clock
Felt it rattling my bones
Like a warning
I had let fear throttle me
Until days dragged by like a prison sentence
And some hidden, untamed part of me
Finally lashed out at the leash leading me to the gallows

Throat raw
Nails ragged
Heart racing towards the wildness that had not abandoned me
I stood defiant in the sunlight
And dared anyone to try to break me
Again

My body has forgotten what it is to be calm
I wake at 2 AM
3 AM
4 AM
Heart racing, racing, racing
Hurtling out of my
Cleaved ribs
Dizzy from trembling like an
Overwound spring
The potential energy buzzing through my skull
Every nerve ready to strike
Ready to fire
Ready to set me ablaze
I howl into my pillow
Until my lungs fracture
Until I'm coughing up soot
From the scorching frenzy coiling beneath my skin
The primal need to hold someone's hand through the dark
Has me twitching like an addict
Has me sweating like withdrawal
Has me wondering why I never had the sense
To shield my fragile ribcage
The terrible thing about having
A heart full of flowers
Is most people aren't gentle
And human instinct is to cut daisies
Rather than tend the garden
And I
Foolish and tender-hearted
Will keep licking affection off knives
Because I've never seen a silver spoon

I fear the stillness
In the quiet
My thoughts are carrion birds
Circling
Ripping apart the flimsy skin
Of all the lies I've told myself
The denial I've tried to put on
Like armor
Like sequins
Like ill-fitting
Distraction

At 3 am
I'll wake with my heart racing
Laid bare by nightmares
And the daydreams that led to them
Sick with the realization that
No matter how badly
I wanted things
To turn out
Better
Sheer force of will would have never been
Enough

When the loneliness
Starts to suffocate you
Starts to squeeze your lungs
To claw your throat
To smother you with the weight
Of all the lives you're
Not living
Remember
Those could-have-beens are
Poison
You will never breathe again
Until you bleed them out
Cough them up
Shriek them into the abyss

Scream, darling
Scream for yourself
Howl until
Your sobs no longer feel like a
Feral creature
Tearing your limbs from a body
That has forgotten how to hold itself

Remember
You are choosing yourself
Even if you have to
Rebuild each of your bones
The growing pains won't last forever
The loneliness won't **** you
You are limping towards a life
That won't keep choking you
A life where you can finally
Fly
Throw your head back under the sun
And know what it is to be
Free

The moment you walked through my door
I understood I'd been a woman
Starved
A creature of wildflowers and sunshine
Browbeaten into icy darkness
Until you reminded me of the
Hunger
That had been roaring beneath the surface

The aching emptiness of it
Tore right through me
And as we fell into step
Could you see it on my face?
As we spoke into the freezing wind
Unleashing the wild
Thrumming
In my veins
Could you hear it in my voice?
Could you hear the unspoken wishes
Or just the raw
Ache
Of the years that stretched taut between us?

I've been walking in the sunshine
And I'm burning with it now
All the things
I wouldn't let myself feel
The gnawing that threatened me
Every time I closed my eyes
The demanding hunger that will no longer
Be caged
The skittering of my foolish
Heart
Always so eager
Always brimming and leaping and crying out for
More
Because I have never once been able to do something halfway
No matter how many times
I nearly lose myself

I'll offer you this frenzied fire
And hope you meet me where I am
Hope you hear the desperate roaring
And roar right back
Hope you see the starving creature beneath the bravado
And offer
Fire
Of your own