Kelly

Kelly Dec 2021

home.

i'd pull vitality from my blood
       into the breaks of your skin
and carefully stitch you together
      with the inhale i take
                                                before breath
    passes my lips
    in between slips             of my obsidian front
                 crumbling from your gentle touch

i'd grab the air by the waist
                and press this taste deep into your bones
       and hope at the very least
                                              you could make a home

in me.

i want to love all of you

Kelly Dec 2021

drowning.

i could never take for granted
   waking up in a room filled with your heat
      watching the gentle heartbeat
pulsing in your neck
        echoing the rhythmic,
                                                      consistent,
outpouring of love from my own chest

And so powerful a word, sullied by
               frivolous and fickle misuse
now washes over me
                                                    overwhelmingly
when i catch the currents
                     of your warm red tide
                                                                  pulling me under

and knowing i can breathe so much better
                                                                                      underwater.

you could have my heart.

Kelly Dec 2021

nyc.

I used to think I fell in love with possibility
Concrete walls brimming with opportunity
And sudden metallic jerks
Running Rails on Halsey street
As well as the bathroom stalls
Of Brooklyn beer bars
Funneling my vision through crooked teeth
And clippings, semantics separated by seconds
Between moments of forgotten clarity
But now I see

It’s just a city

And I’m still painfully me

Kelly Dec 2021

ruined.

I’m so in love with you
            but I feel like I’ve ruined it
and my fragile filthy mind
         replays my shortcomings
                       my embarrassments
                       my failure
                       my faults
                       my worthlessness
your tears.

Drained by my own hand,
pulled from your eyes
                                         by my ability to destroy

everything good            and
everything I want in this life

you feel so okay. And I am so not.

Kelly Dec 2021

worst.

I wish your words could alleviate the worst
       of my thoughts
I wish I could preserve
                         your perception of me
prior to the wreckage
                    I wrought this week

And I wish that leaving
           was as hard for you as it is for me
           was as hard today as before

                 a perfectly composed score
                             of budding love

but now I’ve sung too much off pitch
and I’m overwhelmingly certain
        my fears
        adhered           a foul taste in your mouth

   when you think                of me

And all I believe is “she’ll leave, she’ll leave, she’ll leave”
                         after seeing this worst of me

I love you more than you love me

Kelly Dec 2021

straws.

my chest breaches inward
     a brittle and defenseless cavity
to the acid rain of tears
     falling off your cheeks and burning my skin

wrapping serpents of deficiency, constricted around my heart

bleeding for every serrated edge
                 of your agonizing emotions
and bashing my head into the most unrelenting of walls
so afraid of just how much i am                                  falling
                                                                                          short.

Kelly Dec 2021

stupid.

I could blame it on many things
Like the sounds I make in the morning
The people I’ve faithlessly broken
Or that I’m impossibly weak

I could blame it on the inadequacy or
How much that I drink

Anything other than the truth in these seams
Anything other than the fact that
I’m sure about you

And you’re not sure

About me.