You sat bedside me and I forgot how to breathe.

I'm telling you I love you
You're not saying a thing
but I ******* love you
I keep finding blood on my sheets
but I ******* love you
And I haven't been sober since
the day you left
I don't think I've been sober since
the day we met
Because whether you're staying or going,
you're always leaving bruises
You're always leaving
Tell me how this game works;
You're the one with bullets for teeth
but I'd do anything to be your target
if it meant you'd call me back
I bled at the boarder of
life and death for you
because I couldn't think of a time without
your violence
I hate you the most on the days that I don't
And I hate that I want you back
I'm still wounded and healing
but I just want you back
I'm telling you I love you
You're not saying a thing
*but  I  *******  love  you

Another woman's beauty is not the absence of your own.

She burnt the colour of poison to your teeth
and you've spent the last year brushing them with bleach
just trying to rid the taste of her name off your tongue.
She uprooted all the flowers you planted in her hair
and she threw you to the wolves
because she didn't think you could handle the puncture wounds,
but you crawled fifty miles just to bleed out on her doorstep
and she never came down stairs to see your blood dripping from the porch.
My baby,
I know she made you feel like wind was getting trapped between your ribs
and your organs were losing space to pump your heart back into place.
I know she turned your spit into bitter regret
and beat the screams out from your chest,
I know you're frightened of the gap between my thighs
and all the lovers they have held,
but darling non before you have ever felt so sweet.
We're both still exhaling the fumes past lovers poured down our throats
*but maybe if we kiss for long enough
the chemicals will react and we can disintegrate together.

When you write about someone for long enough
eventually all you can do is replay the last time you saw them,
like a record player stuck on repeat,
spitting out words like
stay.
And I can't help but wonder why
I love you
sounds more like an apology than a confession when it comes from my mouth.
Maybe because I could write an obituary for every time I ever fell in love with you,
but I don't know if that means I've fallen out just as many.
I think of you and I know what Van Gogh meant when he wanted to feel yellow inside -
but this is about the time that paint starts to taste a lot like pestalince,
and I just don't feel like much of an artist anymore.
Especially when all I can ******* think about is you leaning in first to anyone other than me,
but I learned a long time ago that no matter how much you love someone *it won't make them miss you.

You were a ghost town and I was too patriotic to leave.

your ego cannot afford cremation

Beer bottles empty fast

And before you know it
You're face down in a black hole
Of all the words she said
That dug twelve foot tunnels in your veins
And went there to die

Then you're suffocating in a puddle
Of ache and spilled liquor
Dangerously falling for the concept of death

But who knows
Someone might save you
*Or someone might not

I frame the means of his work,
Faceless and boyful
Dissolving somewhere between love and abuse
Successfully regenerated in some rigid idealism
Shaking the wings of his terrible youth
Calling to join him -
The wretched and plastic
No more alone or himself could he be
No shortage of sordid,
No protest from me

He's The Angel of Death in The Ketamine Scene

Feeling less human and hooked on his flesh
Straight from the fields,
All frightened and fertile
****** and raw,
But I swear it is sweet
Lease the unsettling,
I'll wonder the concrete
Wonder if better now having survived

*He's The Angel of Death in The Ketamine Scene

I have a nasty habit
of dropping pieces of
myself on other peoples
doorsteps, leaving
frigernails and stray
hair inside their
post box. I always
give a part of my skin
to strangers on the
street because maybe
someone else can love
it more than me.
And I rely on broken
teeth and bottomless pits
to decide how whole
I really am.

So I set up camp
inside their
bones because I've
never been one to
know what home feels
like and I thought
I could manifest inside
sink holes for hearts
but it only made me
fade to black.

I wanted
to make peace with
the torment in my
head, but then the
flood came and sailed
away the only bed
I could ever sleep in.
And I wanted to hold
onto the idea of
making bonfires in
the small confines of
their back but people
don't take kindly to
being shelter for a
storm that never dies.
I come with lightening
strikes and hurricanes
in a three pocket
backpack and knock
on the doors of those
whose mother never
held their hair back
when they cried.

People are tempory,
in every meaning
of the word. They crack
and they crumble
just like me but the
wreckage of them
always seems to land
right beside my
shacking knees and
I sift through the
rubble because I've never
been one to let go
of things too easily.
I burn alongside the
people that I love
and I let them spit
out their sparks
upon my neck and
I rub their ash into
my flesh and I scream
when I get burnt
because I forget that
they were burning
when we met *and I was
bound to get a little
****** in the end.

You hold a flame for a tongue
I watched it ignite faster than light
And burn in fierce movements

Your words were like sparking embryos
Landing hastily against the air

And before you knew it
Forrest fires emerged
Your fingers menacing with arseny
Buildings thrown to their knees

And now you stand beneath the falling wreckage
Stagnant with terror
Paralyzed with fright
Oh so close to preordained death

Soon you'll encounter flames once more
A thousand replications of your bitter speech
Burning

And burning

And burning

The mind of a tortured artist is
One we worship for its struggle
And judge for its suffering*

The mind of a tortured artist is
One we find necessary to understand
When it is simply necessary to love

I think of you as breaths of air;
forgettable but necessary.
I think maybe you could manifest into solidity -
if only I stopped comparing you to wind;
blury and fleeting,
but oh so necessary.

You sold me a love that resides in a cage,
confines of guilt that only grow stronger with age
You expect your love and all its intensity to justify your self-righteous jealousy,
as if a sufficiently suffocating love defies all practical incompatibilities

Bless me with a love that is void of steel and chains,
one that let's me grow without restraints

And every selfish act of love
you bruised upon my skin will
be the outline of my coffin
They'll wrap my fragility in satin,
anything to soften the fall
They will burry me deep,
with postmortem marks of
your teeth
My organs will be gone,
dying out across your sheets,
waving flags of defeat
My blood will be on your hands
and you won't care to wash it off
You'll leave your handprints
on my thighs
and lick your fingers with pride
You will watch as they lower
me beneath the surface
and smile wide
*There is no greater revenge
than staying alive

my body is not a debt to be paid.

We spent our youths
sleeping in empty bathtups
because we like the way it
makes his memory echo
through the silence,
the way syllables got
trapped beneath the taps.
And we only paid
attention to abandoned buildings
when we became one.
But we never had someone
around to tell us that
the objects in the mirror
are less depressed than
they appear.
So we keep reciting bedtime
stories and dryheaving
scattered sensations because
saying his name feels
like chocking down bleach
but it hurts less than
knowing no amount of time
spent staring passed empty
doorways will bring him back.
No one told us that goodbyes
taste like the back of a
postage stamp and no one
told us that coming home
feels a lot like drowning.
Every year for Halloween
we dress up as the versions
of ourselves that were in love
with the way their skin
looked in the day time
and we sit
outside upon the porch
hoping we'll walk out and
leave our heartless archetypes
behind.
No one told us that loving
would be like playing
the piano for someone who
can't hear,
or that it would remind us
of the way we felt the first
time we dropped our ice
creams as a kid.
So we're trapped finding
colours in the shadows
on the ceiling and
we keep storing secrets
in our cigarettes.
Because we just can't seem to
find our place
in this world and
we swopped a one bedroom
apartment for a bloodless
bag of dark hair and
dislocated words.
We curled our spines
into shapes that resemble
hurricanes
because all we see
between our bones is
substance for natural disaster.
We lost hope the moment
she hurled from our van
and we've been searching
inside drug stores
ever since.
So excuse us,
for we smell of death
and cheap wine.
And our clothes are stained
from loss and citric acid,
but if you let us limp
our way passed,
you may learn the lesson
your mother never had
the nerve to teach you

The angles had guitars even before they had wings,
and his fingers wove delicately through nylon strings,
and the ends of my hair,
playing tunes that only I could hear.
His chest thumped in rythem,
echoed past morgues
and cemeteries like church bells.
His mouth was as simple as an oceans shell,
vibrating the voice of God through bones consumed in sin,
and silence.
Fragile and infinite.
He held me in a cradle made of skin off his back,
rocked me like the waves do the shore,
and sang me peacefully at rest.
He was the lords gift to mankind,
to me.
And even though his hallow fell tight around his neck,
and serpents arrived one late September night,
his wings burnt markings of Christ along the the floor.
Poison swam through his veins,
and cursed his eyes to black,
but still he sang the tones of faith.
For a boy created in hands so holy,
he sure did die a death devoid of mercy.

Guilty and hazy
Like I've got my hands on a colt
He made me feel crazy
He made me feel like everything was my fault
As if he were the lamb
And I were the slaughter

He's the reason people get into fights about religion
And it's not just a coincidence that his voice resembles The Fall of Babylon
He tore me apart like The Red Sea
And he burnt through my lungs like the ninth circle of hell
So now my breath reeks of the kinda death you can't smell

i've got this new home now,
it's not really new
but it smells different.
and i'm sitting here in front my old home
like a smoke signal,
just a trail of grey,
trying to figure out when a home expands further than just a place to keep all my stuff.
my new home is where i'm living
so i guess that means my old home is where i died,
and i'm saying all of this
because i don't wanna say jumping off a bridge is easy,
to sink like a life raft
left out in the sun.
i don't wanna say that stealing a bunch of pills would be easy because it's too easy
to leave without saying goodbye.
you see,
people always say that you'll be missed
but if you've wanted to die for long enough
eventually
that loses its value,
cause it's too easy not to care, to just sink.
so i'm sitting here in my new home
and i don't know why i asked my phone how to get here,
maybe i just like it when something agrees with me,
and it doesn't feel like
the kind of home i used to know.
i feel like an actor in a poorly edited student film,
always looking directly into the camera,
like somehow the eye of the chaos will just dive out and grab me.
i don't really know what i mean by that
but i guess what i'm trying to say is;
home is where i have my most comfortable panic attacks,
it's a place that i never have to leave.
home is where i get to sleep,
and,
if I want to,
wake up.

Would it be alright
If every few late nights
I gave you a call?

This time I won't stall
I just want to tell you that I miss you
The objects of my endurance are few

I was hoping for some closure
I'll keep my composure
It'll hurt me more than you, I swear
My head keeps echoing your words, "I still care"

Sometimes I just want to hear your voice
Telling me that I was your first choice
Even through the cracks of a telephone
I'd feel less alone

After that we could sit in silence
I'll try to hide my reliance
At least I'll know you're there
Tell me that you still care

I could tell you that I miss how you lit my cigarettes
And how you crumble for silhouettes

You could tell me about your ex
And how your bodies would intersect
We could complain about the tortures of being untouched
I could tell you I miss the way our hands clutched

I could tell you that the grace of you left a void that my every thought trips up and falls through
But you'll probably misconstrue

I could tell you about how dull life has become since you left

This will be history to theft

I could tell you that I'm depressed
But you'll be unimpressed

Or we could just sit in a breakable silence
And let the connection be our defiance

i've watched him bleed emotions in the way he holds his beer;
like a lover too potent to choke down but not sweet enough to finish

he is the side effect of the phrase
"kids can be cruel"
and i've spent nights searching for a warning label tucked in between his ribs,
expecting to find her name under
"owners information,"
but he won't let me close enough to find it

he ***** like he wants to forget,
but I don't much mind because i'm just trying to remember,
remember what it's like to feel that the stars are something someone built for me in their garden shed
but i grew up believing nobody would ever fall in love with me,
and he's too busy dragging his feet across the bar to notice the way she looks at him

i can hear the faded tunes of children singing
"words will never hurt me,"
while we empty ourselves onto *** stained sheets
don't tell me that hurts less than a broken bone

i want to tell him that we are not stalled cars sitting abandoned on the highway,
and if in some way we are,
we only got out to walk and get gas
i want to tell him that this is just debris,
but he's already half way down the street,
substituting prayers for broken fingers and i can't run fast enough to put a cast around his broken wrists and sign it
*"THEY WERE WRONG"

I used to bring prescription pills
to parents day
because I didn't think anyone
could tell the difference

What'd you call Christmas
without heat
in a house without power?
2007

My father swore that he'd
teach me how to ride a bike but
instead he introduced me
to his new baby girl
And every time we drive
past the hospital
my mother remindes me how much it cost to save my life
that one year
She doesn't have
to say that she wished I'd left
instead of him
She spent twenty one years
tucking my brother into bed
but it took her nine just to touch me

And when I finally had the courage
to tell my mother I was too afraid
to eat - she told me it's a blessing
That she spent most of her twenties
regurgitating flesh into paper bags
and that's how she got daddy
to stay

I haven't seen him in close to three years
but he calls sometimes
and we talk about the weather
I still remember the day he said goodbye
He said he'd come back
and we'd clean up that old bike from the shed
*I still walk home

Stumbling from the depths of Heroahima,
you came to find riptides in my hurricane,
only to learn that two storms can't build a home
And besides,
you've forgotten how to float

She is a prayer made
by Gods when they have
lost their way. With words
leaking from her teeth,
and passion burning through
her throat, she spins my pain
between her fingers, like a
riot of thought. With blood
shot eyes, she watched the
world caress my darkest fears-
then with a slip of a limb-
embraced me and my shards
of bone. She is a mouth of silence
when you think you need speech.
Sheet music written on her
lower lip, she played the
tunes of my survival with a
quick flip of the tongue.
Words were spilt along a
bathroom floor, drowning us
in hope and tragedy.
Hands were sown together
by the fragments of
discarded scars. She swallowed
my fears and made me watch,
let them fester away on her lungs.
Told me that I will no longer
burn alone, that we are now one soul,
and we will die together. Now
my life rests comfortably
inside of her, warmed by
her veins and undying love.
She is a prayer made by Gods
when they have lost their way,
and she is my religion,
my savior, my friend.

You are the difference
between hell and home
and I'm still trying to
figure out how your arms
made me feel like
I was in both places at once -
like your hands could
wire my wings
but you'd prefer me to
rot in your flames.
You saw no shame in
swallowing my organs whole;
as if you needed me
to be empty enough
for the wind to pick up
and take me away.
Like you woke up in
the morning hoping to
find shreds of my
clothes stuck between
the trees
because it
wouldn't be leaving you
if I didn't leave parts
of myself too.
And I keep trying to
gather them up but
they're torn from your
words that stain like
bile and I just
can't seem to stitch
them back together
again.
It feels like you
put out the cigarettes
you never smoked
along my neck
because
they hurt more than
hickies
and you only
wanted me to remember
you by the scars you
left upon my body.
And even though I'm
framed from head to
toe in your pristine lies,
I could watch you
pull apart my flesh in
pure awe because I
swear every twitch
of your shameless fingers
defines the movement
of the cosmos and the planets.
Sometimes at night
I can feel your hands
burning through the
ventricles in my heart,
and I dont mean that poetically,
I mean I can feel you
degrading in my blood
and I can hear you
quiver every time I moan
because nothing gets
you going like a plea for
mercy can.
You are a monster engulfed
in a masterpiece of skin
with a black hole for a heart
and I don't know how
I could love you so much
when all the bruises
still show.
The only comfort I have
held is the one
resting in your chest
and sometimes
I can't sleep at night
without pretending you're
sleeping here too,
and it hurts -
*it  really  *******  hurts.

You see god in bathroom stalls,
and many may call that grotesque,
but only you can see the metaphors
the walls posses. You bleed emotions
in the way you make your bed.
And you keep old lovers whispers in
your garden shed. You bleed paper
cuts instead of stubbed toes, and your
teeth are burnt from words unsaid instead of cigarettes. You probably take scolding hot showers instead of cold, because you already know what it's like to be frozen -
and all you want is to feel pain again.
But not the kind you spend sleepless
nights perfecting onto whiskey
stained napkins, because the girl across
the bar breathes similes. But rather
the kind that melt the blisters from
your knuckles, and remind you that you are decaying. It's okay that you
break your fingers instead of praying.
It's okay to see the fairytales between the tiles, and it's okay that you compare
rotting fruit to your own soul,
or a nine inch wide black hole.
It's okay that you see grace inside of illness,
and sonnets inside of fear. Because
you are a writer, and you have
already won.