You are the cigarette I can’t put down
An ache held deep in my chest
After I’m done I hate the taste in my mouth
You burn hot and you burn out fast
Never takes long for **** to go south
I swear each time will be the last
The next day I buy another pack
I light you up and **** you down
I look in the mirror; it starts to crack
Others notice I’m dropping weight
30 lbs in 2 months, a strict diet of devotion and hate
My grandma tells me I look great
What’s my secret?
Cigarettes and you; keep washing me away
I’m burning up too fast too drown
Still I can’t put you or this ******* cigarette down

Pink athletic shorts
Bursting at the seams
With all this new body
Hips and waist and ***
You said
“It’s about time to retire those don’t you think?”
2 months later
They hang loosely past my hip bones
Hiding the body that dissolved
The person who is no longer there
And I’m glad I kept them
So they could swallow me whole

I realized
as I aged that
my own intensity was not easily weathered by any man. Or any person.
My almond eyes were Venus flytraps
to the ghosts of my past who were drawn in all too quickly,
only to be devoured by their ceaseless lust and depraved need.
There was no dial to my passion, once awakened it could only be suppressed to a dull roar.
Many who met my gaze disintegrated before me into piles of dust and rubble and hollow disappointment.
They say eyes are the window to the soul, and I thought mine was host to a terrible demon or succubus.
I only discovered as my brain finished stitching together in my early adulthood that it is not demons who crumble weak men with their eyes, but goddesses

Confrontations of candor
Bittersweet release
Relentless ghosts whisper
“The devil is in the details”

Chemical haze; colored sands of stark contrast
I can’t seem to sift through
Tight grips
White knuckled grasping
It runs through my fingertips regardless

A heart stitched together with scar tissue
Thick, white lines etched carefully on thighs
If my heart grows
Will I find stretch marks there, too?

Silky smooth tracing
With bony fingertips
The birth of fresh skin cells
Each year more and more
Skin dissolves into dust from before
It runs through my fingertips regardless

The girl with the protruding rib cage
With fire just behind
Blue-green, ever-shifting eyes
She branded passion into her arms
With a lit cigarette

Eyes that only saw black or white
Torment suffered red
Pain inflicted blue
Fused into monochrome shades of slate

Digging up her grave
Clawing at the dirt and sand
Until blood runs down soft hands
Struggling to separate the two
Dry, dry sand
It slips through my fingertips regardless

With you, everything I thought was an ending
Has become a beginning
All the pain
All the suffering
I’d relive every broken minute
Every cut
Every lonely night
Every reckless encounter
If only to have a brief moment of you
And your golden brown eyes
That have seen such darkness but *******
I see the sun dance across them
Like a beacon of hope
Every scar
Every tattoo
Where you display your pain
On the canvas of your tired body
Only deepens my love for you
I wish I could be for you
All you’ve been for me
A life giving rain
I’ll tend to all those abandoned flowers
You hide deep in your brain
Even neglected, they are so beautiful
Sometimes I can see them blooming when you speak
They’re roses
I can see them right behind that spark in your eyes
That you keep locked away
Because your heart is tainted dark with shame
But, my love, with a little rain
A touch of sunlight
And a few warm words
I can mend them
They’ll bloom so no one can ever deny they’re there
Not even you.
You are not decayed
You are not a lost cause
You are not depraved
This is not the ending
This is our real beginning
You are no longer
Loveless

She’s a *****
They say
As she lies on her back
They hear the moans and whispers
But they can’t see
Her vacant eyes
Or her clenched teeth
They can’t see that she was trained
Trained to please
A piece of her soul is taken
Each man takes a piece
But they can’t see the broken human
Beneath
They don’t understand “no”
She was taught to be this way
Taught to suffer silently
She’s a harlot
They say
She gives them what they want
Little do they know
Inside she is screaming
Increasingly repulsed
by their touch
but her body is not her own
So she lies in her coffin
It’s easier to rot away
He rolls off of her corpse
Panting
She’s a ****
He’ll say
It was so easy
She’s a *****
But she’s the one who pays

I can hear my bones rattling
With every labored breath
I sink further
just below the surface
Of crystal clear water
The drugs can’t quell the sadness
Another sip of poison
To erase the image
Of your lips on hers
My hands tremor constantly
In the absence of yours
The purity of loneliness
Is only matched by
The sharpness of pain
One only feels when their soul mate
Lies with another
It is gut wrenching sadness
Tainted with shame

I am a sponge
To the suffering
Of others
Willfully
Sinfully
I will drink away your pain
I lick the hurt from my lips
But there is a stain
Growing ever larger
A hole
Deep in my soul
I give all I can
And strive not to take
I was a hurricane
Now all I feel
Is soft love and dull pain
I am fertilizer
Deep in the soil
Decaying
Nourishing others
By depriving myself
Stitching together torn souls
In exchange for my own

I am not a landfill for
Insecurities
I am not the void to repair
Damaged masculinity
Yes, I am a woman
Comfortable with my sexuality
But, aren't I supposed to decide
When i want that kind of intimacy?
Everyone's got their demons
I'm always the dirt beneath their shoes
As the climb from the pit
I want to be more
I want to be whole
I want to be strong enough
To stop it when I say no
**** is a four letter word
I wish I didn't feel it in my bones
When the one I loved hushed my cries,
I said no

We were abused
In the same way
And yet you used me
I see fire in your eyes and I see comfort in your smile. I see everything that moves me,
I thought nothing would ever move me again but there you were
With beer on your jacket
I am panting admiration
But your touch is toxic
And you touched me well
You loved me
You never found yourself so you lost me.
But then i lost me
You ruined me
So vulnerable at seventeen
I have lost that weakness
Calloused and cold
Sometimes the darkness won't let go
But I am stronger now
Xanax dreams don't leave
In other bottles I find release

I search for bliss
Exchange my dignity
For chemical cures
Wrench my soul
From my anxious body
To sink ever deeper
Into the abyss  
Waves of ecstacy
Fill charred lungs
Resurface
Only to have lost you
Pain, red and hot
Scars my skin
Sell my heart
Ache replaces love
It is an all consuming hurt
Shatters bones on red brick
Cravings; deceptive serpents
Twist around me
Suffocating me
Forcing me to drown myself once more

perhaps I've lost my mind
from all the red lighters
the aching in my stomach
it craves the chemicals
chemicals that warp my dreams
distort my deepest desires
I see cigarette burns
I see glossy red eyes
In a broken mirror
why do I search for bliss
in strangers and amber bottles
In pain and indifferent lovers

I wish I never had
to speak another word
Wrap myself in silence
No more masks
No more pain
Get drunk enough
To slur the truth
Do another line
Drown myself in lies
Dream of a life
On the other side

I need to see the sunrise
In the sun
Perhaps I won't be consumed
By those brown eyes
That haunt me
Eyes that once watched me
That you desperately tried
To hide behind
I'm afraid if I don't see
All the colours in the morning sky
I'll never see myself again
The smoke is burning
My ******* eyes
God where is the sun
I can see my breath
See your navy blue hat
On the floor of the car
But I cannot see the sun

What is an artist
Without a muse
What am I
Without you
I am empty glass bottles
And white powder lines
On the bathroom sink
I am dark cigarette burns
Scarred on pale arms
And cuts hidden on thighs
I am a slave
To prescription medicine
To chemical cures
When the bottles are empty
I am empty

It's 1am
And I'm alone
With the ghost
Of warm hands
And soft love
My mind is filled
With songs we sang
Too loud
My cigarette
Won't quiet my craving
For that searing hot
Touch
Despite the scars
Cut into my skin
Before you
And the sting
Of your indifference
After you
I will heal
I will become strong
I will be cold hard steel
Yet I will never melt
Like I did before
I only did for you

Yours is the only skin
That has ever touched mine
That didn't taint me
I could look in the mirror
Look in your eyes
Find comfort
You looked in mine
You saw the demons
I tried to look down so you wouldn't notice
But you never saw me the same
Every other touch
Disgusts me
The only eyes I see now
Are mine
Glossy and red
Reflecting in the mirror
Blue green ever shifting eyes
And I'll continue my steady gaze
I'll stare at nothing in particular
I'll turn into a statue
Cold hard stone
Or I'll be steel so I won't crack

I'll scrape my knees
I'll scrape up change
Change to save
Change my brain
Smoke less packs a day
Cheap words I always say
Cheap words of love
Drown myself in liquor
Drown myself in shame
Don't tempt another scar
Paint my face
Carefully conceal my arms
Keep my mouth shut
Salvation always masks
Damnation

Walls are tall
Walls are strong
I thought I could feel it pulsing
That heart you guard
Your deception was smooth
But The pulse came from my own heart
I suppose you never had one
But why did you have to steal mine
Why did you leave me hollow

Flashbacks
Snapshots
Of a different time
A different me
A different perception
A skewed reality
An easy deception
An ignorant little girl
Who had too much to drink
A wild little queen
Who never stopped to think
Now all she sees
Is a broken mirror
Fragments of memories
Nightmares and PTSD
Institutionalized and forcefully taken
No salvation
Only one violent revelation

I am only human
But I can feel Armageddon
It's trapped in my body
I am afraid to open my eyes
because if your eyes meet mine
you will glimpse The End
You will never be the same
I'm so afraid to touch you
Because my disease will spread
Soon everyone on earth will be infected
Nothing will be able to save them
I am exhaling poison and it is
filling the atmosphere
It won't be long before your lungs collapse
Because you kissed me
Don't you see the warning signs
Don't you hear them
When I mutter my words
Don't let me manipulate
Control you baby
Stay away

Maybe one day
I won't see your face
In every sunset

when I met you
I was a ******
To ***
Drugs
Self harm
When you left me
I was drowning in addictions
Self mutilating the body
I gave to anyone
Just to feel anything
Even close
To the way your toxic touch
Made me feel

Sometimes the impulse to write is in my bones and buzzing in my brain
My skull shakes and the voices feel like and earthquake
For me, it's always been a disease
An unforgiving compulsion that stops me in my tracks
These words escape, Christ, I don't even think
It's like being possessed
So I picked up this ******* red pen to perform an excorcism

I see behind
Your vacant eyes
Right through to your core
There's nothing there
There never was
An empty shell
With painted sides
Masking truth
Hiding lies

Why do I still smoke cigarettes
Now that they make me sick to my stomach
This town is already suffocating me
It dies at midnight
As the city lights go out
The cherry of my cigarette goes dark
Nothing is genuine
And every street light that illuminates
The silent streets
Confirms my worst fears
Every living creature dies alone
I wish I didn't understand
Wish I could be ignorant again

Three days was all it took
You got under my skin
I'm not sure if it was
The way your hands wrapped
Around my neck
Or the way your lips melted into mine
I hope I got under yours
When my fingernails slid down your back
Telling our story in red lines
It's never felt so good to hurt

with a Polaroid camera
I captured you
I captured us
made us tangible
made you mine
face to face
skin to skin
rough hands
bringing me back to life
I've been cold for so long
A touch and a tremble
Ignites new flames
Consumes me
Soft sounds
Perfect chemistry
Unfamiliar devotion
Belonged to no one
Belongs to you now

I told you that night
When the temperature hovered
At 32 degrees Fahrenheit that
Girls like me don't have a god
We are the girls with
Dark cherry lips
Cigarette smiles
That get drugs for free
We break hearts
With no remorse
Vanity is our religion
Always made up for photographs
In thick makeup and black clothes
We worship our goddess Aphrodite
And she gives us the power to be
Invincible

My heart is heavy
The weight of reality
Telling me that beautiful girls die
Parents bury their children
And none of us are permanent

I'm not sure how to tell you
That the pack of cigarettes
you bought me is gone
And the one I'm smoking now
Was a gift
From someone else

red hot labels
scarred my skin
like an animal
being prepared for slaughter
I close my eyes
all I can see
are lies
burned into the back of my mind
I was branded
worthless
until my blood became fire
I cut open skin
my flame burned them all
and I branded myself with a blade
beautiful

purple prints
smudged on the canvas
of white skin
the only remnants
of the great requited love
that once softened our bones
waves of passion
that broke onto
the beach of violence
blame
and bruises

FOUR YEARS AGO
I REALIZED WHO I WAS
RESENTMENT FOR YOU
BUILT WALLS OF STEEL
I WAS YOUNG
WHEN YOU TAUGHT ME
THE MEANING
OF HIPOCRACY
YOU SCRAPED MEANINGLESS
WORDS TOGETHER
BUT THEY WERE
WEAK
AND THE WALLS
STOOD TALL
YOUR ABSENCE
WAS THE LOUDEST
MESSAGE I HAVE EVER RECEIVED
IT HOLDS MY HEAD
BENEATH THE WATER
AND AS I SINK TO THE BOTTOM
OF YOUR SHALLOW OCEAN
I WILL NEVER KNOW TRUST
ONLY SELF HATRED
AND THE HOLLOW SHELL
OF WHAT A FATHER IS

heart beat racing
searing hot blood
to the tips of my fingers
that trace circles on your back
and yours that are
intertwined violently
beautifully
running through my hair
the weight of a kiss
that burns holes through
my body
and steals the breath
from my blackened lungs
you were a stranger
but that night
i drowned my inhibitions
in whiskey
and you became
briefly
the sun

i was raging flame
tearing apart my world
bringing hell to earth
burning it piece by piece
until acid rain
bled from the clouds
when the storm subsided
the ground was dry
in the ghost of the forest fire
that was hidden beneath
storm drenched trees
a spark ignited
and I rose from the ashes
born again as the pheonix

thin crust of earth
dry and cracked
cannot breed beauty
lovely things dismantled
absent of the living rain
where I am trapped
in the grip
of the void

fire burns slowly
it feeds on the dead
red hot flames
coaxing strength into ash
it used to burn through me
charring pale white skin
with its all-consuming hunger
forcing blood to pump through my veins
forcing blood to drip down my legs
it is my own fire
that scarred me so beautifully
it clenched my teeth
and wrenched my eyes wide open
red-flickering across the the smooth surface
of blue green eyes
until the needle pierced me
and fed the ocean to my veins
freezing deep blue flood
extinguishing the searing hot
that once forced me to live
the water drips into my lungs
killing all the smoke I stored there
then it rushes in too quickly
all that's left is ice
crystallized behind a glaze
of blue green ever shifting eyes
where passion once burned bright
brutally murdered by
the crash of smothering waves
infinitely taller than my will power
disguised as good intentions