i hope my words scrape your throat when you say them to yourself. i hope you read this aloud just to see, reading and feeling them stick in your teeth, reading and wondering whether the pit in your stomach will ever cease, if you will ever kiss someone with ease, wondering if trembling fingers means death or just a life of unease, sitting and trembling and feeling darkness like a weight rolling around in your knees, reading words that scrape and stick in the pits of your favorite tees, rolling around with the grease and the laziness you need to never wash the pits of your favorite tees.

am i sick of this or am i just sick of myself?

i turn over in bed
again, feeling flames
lick my stomach,
digging fingernails
in my palms
against the pain
on nights like these
i forget my name,
forget why
the sparks in my eyes
leave me dry
and burning.

it's that time of the year
again
full of dry skin and
dryer eyes
emotions feeling like
woollen sweaters
in the sunlight
feeling like regret, feeling
like very not right
feeling like the whole season
makes you sleepy, makes it night
darker mornings, darker times
and it's well known
we all feel a little more alone
at night.

i know what this is,
this is madness,
this is craving for a touch, for the
self-destructive nature
of his clutch, these are
soulmates who only
want it rough,
these are kisses
and we never get enough:
these are chances
and we only get them once.

your lover,
does he lie? does he
tell you that you're fine,
that you're wrong, that
you're losing your mind
does it all feel
like a sickly sweet song
written by someone
who doesn't know at all
what it is
to not want to go on?

your lover,
is he fine?
is he losing his mind
between your calls
and your wrongs
does he feel like a sickly sweet
song when you cry
and he dies
a little more inside
when he doesn't have anything more to do but lie.

a single daffodil
burns
in the shadows
of the earth
as it turns
and we
still
can't
speak.

(do the comets sing?
                                             do ten thousand asteroids whisper when        
                                             our kisses sting?)