words like bullets.

i don't want them to hit me.
i don't want to bleed.

i don't want you to hurt me.
i don't want you to shoot.

i don't want
you to
wake up/
get out of bed/
get dressed/
look at me like that/
close your eyes/
turn around/
turn back/
speak/
turn around/
leave.

but your tongue's on
the trigger,
and my heart's beating fast.
and i'm closing my eyes,
counting seconds,
counting sheep
because you can't hurt me
when i'm asleep.

i won't feel a thing.

you're pulling the trigger
and my mouth is quieting the racing bullets,
but although they're muffled they still hit my ears,
the pain travelling to my heart.

i bite your tongue too hard
and you bleed into my mouth
and i try to forget that you said

"i'm sorry."

and i watch you,
everything in me
still.

everything in me
is
lifeless.

plant yourself like a tree in my chest, root into my bones until there's nothing left dividing us

I have dug
a hole
near the house
where you live

and lifted
the veins; daffodils
surgically
from the soil

they watch
from my window
so tall
and so yellow

isn't it fun to
believe in things that aren't
real? fate. soulmates. you.

there are some things we want that we can’t always have. happiness. love. but we make it through, you know? why? because humans are resilient creatures. we are made to withstand pain, and loss, and whatever else. biologically that’s how we’re made, it’s an evolutionary thing. it’s something that happened because of our history as creatures on earth. we are adaptable.

icarus—
curiosity is a fire,
roaring inside your ribcage.
you wonder, and you want,
and the tips of your fingers
stretch themselves
towards the sun—
warm, then hot,
then scorching,
and finally, you plummet.
icarus—
they call you a tragedy,
but tell me,
did your blood not run
liquid gold,
in that moment
the sun’s heat
embraced you?
didn’t the touch
of pure, pure opulence
leave stardust
and embers
embedded in
your skin,
a heavenly dust
adorning your burns?
icarus—
in the sky, as you
dive towards earth,
you glimmer
like glory.
icarus—
charred angel,
did you not feel divine
in the seconds before
you fell?
icarus—
wasn’t the warmth
worth what followed?

don’t you know? your body
is made of stardust—i see
it glimmering in you.
don’t you know? you are
not too much, you are not
too little, you are an
entire world; you are
mountains, you are trees,
you are the gentle-moving
tides and the soft-curving river,
you are the ever-still lake.
don’t you know? the craters
in your skin are no less
beautiful than the ones that
kiss the moon’s surface.
don’t you know? there are
nebulae inside your chest,
and they glow, they glow,
they glow—you are never
alone in the darkness, love.
don’t you know? the night
sky twinkles along you,
the northern lights oscillate
as you breathe.
don’t you know? don’t you
know? you are beautiful;
you are your own galaxy.

go on
spit me out
and forget about me
like that piece of gum
on the side of
the road.

Poetry and writing are partly the quest to find the patterns that illuminate our inner truths.