I'm not a real person anymore,

You made me fake.

The only studying we ever got done
together was anatomy,

you whispering the names of bones into
my skin, each followed with a kiss-

clavicle

sternum

ilium

patella

Each word sparking through my skin
and into the blood coursing around my
body.
Making alpines of my skin with each of
your exhales.

It's much warmer here beneath the sheets
than between the pages of your books.

I stopped breathing last night,
dreams of weights resting on
my chest woke me flailing,  
calling for help without a voice.
In my dream we were in your room
and you were sleeping on my
chest the way that you used to.
We'd had a fight about my best friend
about how you thought that he was
in love with me just like
that barista at our café and
my scruffy coworker and just about
everyone on my train ride home.
I told you,
(I think I screamed a little)
that it wasn't possible because I had you.
You said I had a Dickinson heart
but I didn't understand your
literary references
(because by this point I was crying)
and so you kissed me and laid me
down and I woke up
suffocating.
You were sitting on my chest, darling,
grinning at me.

I wrote a letter to my 12-year-old self and
It went something along the lines of
“Love Yourself”
but counselling office posters read the same
things so I ripped it up.

See, I used to think that I could fly into the
Sun and it would feel like a warm hug, nothing
So drastic as incineration

Then I saw what could happen to pallid skin on
a hot day and my mindset changed.

I wrote a letter to my 10-year-old self and it
Was more like a warning,

(a red light is flashing, don’t fly into that tower)

Don’t let yourself become cynical
Don’t forget to call your grandmother
Don’t get so caught up in making money that
You’ve forgotten what it means to be a kid

You should be doing loop-the-loops around
That tower,
Roll upside-down, see your city like a bird.

Don red, bleach your apron, do something
Radical to it.

This has become the unsung song of your life

You’ve forgotten to live.

How many more of these will I have to write until

You're finally removed from my mind? I tried to buy

Flowers for my friend but I couldn't because daisies

Remind me of cigarettes and perfume. The way you

Tried to cover up the smell with it.

You see, I take the beautiful things and I ruin them.

Sometimes I dream that something is choking me

And I'll wake up still suffocating, wondering if this

Is the moment that I die.

I've been dreaming a lot about dying lately.

Do you read these letters, baby? Do you know that

It's you that's choking me in my sleep? Pushing down

Against my chest but I'm so intoxicated by you that

I think it's love.

It's Friday night and I could pretend that I'm going to some party where
The boys are too drunk and
The girls have lost themselves in between the bathroom mirror and the bathroom floor.

Maybe the music is a bit too loud but the smoke outside should cover it up.

You might be leaning against the side of a couch or
Up against a wall with someone else-
A girl, maybe, with too long eyelashes
And hair that reeks of perfume
(I know you hate it).

I would probably walk in and change the music, do a little jig that makes people laugh but I won't remember it in the morning.

You could come over and pull me out into the biting chill of the backyard's night and tell me about the things you saw in the bathroom upstairs.

I would grab your face and kiss it all over and you'd let me because you'd be doing the same thing.

Step one, step two, step three
And it led me home.

And that was last night and I'm craving for your skin again.
Goodnight.

Whenever my bones ached,
my mother would tell me that
“they’re just growing pains".
All of my problems will be gone
in the morning because things
won’t matter anymore then.