You puffed out hatred
In blushing clouds that glowed against the hollow sky
And I writhed in the back seat
To the music of a broken carburetor and a lack of self-respect

Inky purple stains strewn across the dashboard
To match the ones on my shoulders
There’s a sky up there and I don’t think you’ve ever seen it
Because you say I’m a constellation that someone wrote the story of
Before they tossed me into the sky

So you toss me around like candy wrappers and train tickets
Because you like me when I’m crumpled in the center console
Below the strength of your hand that holds the cigarette
That you burnt your name into my skin with

This highway smells like gasoline
Maybe because I’m doused in you
And every time the road turns itself over into a new year
I tell myself that I’ll love you

Better than I do from below your feet
Peeking out from under your tread
While I’m treading water in the bottom of your cup holders
Or maybe one day from the passenger seat with your fingers pushing bruises into my thighs

You’re driving me towards the milky way with ashes in my palms
Away from city lights, away from myself
There’s a solar system next to my body in the trunk
And it always spins around you

My spine is kissing the ground
And I’m looking up at planets dying out

I wonder if my death will ever be that bright

There’s a constellation of bruises on my shoulders
In the pattern of raindrops
And everything is dusty and damp

It hasn’t been bright inside of me in longer than I can remember

And I don’t remember what you feel like
I don’t remember feeling at all
Or what skin feels like when it’s not puckered into white lines

I’m as dark as ashes

Maybe that’s all I am today.

I’ll be the tip toes out of your door at night
The last headlights to ever kiss your driveway goodbye
Since I couldn’t do the same to you

You can be the break in my heart
I can be the good in your night
And I’ll never find out if you’re a breakfast person

I’ll be clothes littered on the floor
Dirtying up our consciences
Until someone comes and picks you up
Out of these messes I make

And you…
You’ll be the hollowness I feel at night

Because I let you fill the holes in my body
When I couldn’t fill the holes in my heart

But I’ll leave a space for you between my fingers
And clear a room in the basement of my thoughts
Where you can stay always

If you ever want

I stood in the steam and tried to feel human again
Tried to feel anything at all
The hot water beat down on me like angel wings, and the steam rose up like flowers in winter, and I breathed in the clean smell of apples mixed with my own blood
Trying to remember if this is what happiness smells like
I stood there, in the embrace of scalding water, like the aftermath of the world's demolition
Letting summer rains wash away the rubble and the ashes that crowded the empty streets in my mind
And in the steam I felt my heart rip open as the murky warmth seeped into my skin
Behind a glass door, thick with the condensation of the lies and the fake smiles I slipped out of and left lying on the bathroom floor
I let myself die in the steam while the water washed away the granules of sincerity that stuck in my blood-matted hair
And breathing out the moist, heavy density of my own broken personhood
I stood naked in the solitude of my momentary shelter
Hoping to never feel human again

Failure clung to me like winter,  wrapping its tender fingers around my throat
And shaking life from me like dreams from childhood sheets
Failure let icy winds take hold of me and steal away my soul with whispers
Visible for everyone to see, insufficiency etched itself across my skin like bruises
Passionate, vibrant, and lethal.
In the scorn of daylight, my faults glistened like dew drops in the morning
Written across my shoulders like the freckled stories of summer
Or the shattered tales of my childhood
And in the middle of my self-loathing, I stood naked and unhinged
Unraveling all my syllogisms until acidic, gradual failure
Broke me down to the most basic form of human life
And there are I was
Alone and nonexistent
And failure draped itself over my bruised arms and shaking faith
And lovingly, endlessly, blissfully
Failure drowned me in its love

I was fifteen and as sober as I'll ever be
when a man I'll never know told me more than God ever did
With a broken embrace and hands that fell singed and irrelevant as parchment
He said he couldn't go yet
I told him no one wants to. He told me everyone does.
Because dying is inevitable
It's a lock that can't be picked
But everyone wants to die happy
And he had never been happy

That's what he said to me.

Sadness held me when no one else would. I was afraid, and alone, and a mess, but sadness selfishly let me crawl into its lap, and curl up into a size of myself that I could tolerate but no one could love. Sadness held me when you didn't. It held me when my heartbeat was a hurricane, and when the apologies rolled out of my throat like tidal waves. Sadness threw on its rainboots and marched through the storm to bring the moon back to me when you couldn't even march outside. Running its cloudy fingers through my hair like strands of spider webs, careful not to skip a single inch, sadness pulled me against its hollow chest and whispered venomous conciliatory reminders of who we are into my broken head. Sadness shook me like a seizure until I finally fell asleep.
And when I woke up to the soft grey light of this existence, sadness held me because my heart slipped through the greedy fingers of everyone who tried, shattering on the floor as you walked away from the mess you hadn't seen before. Sadness held me because no one else could. And I deserved to be held.