I was your cigarette - I gave you all of me
Until you decided I wasn't enough anymore
you threw me out
  
         And replaced me

I scraped my knee
and asked my lover if he thought
the blood is brown because I am all dried out and
rotten inside,
or if I am just full of dirt. As children, we
drew lines in cemetery soil

pretended to snort them – I must have inhaled
the cry of someone’s bones
their whimpers
of exhaustion

(my angel in a cloud
who I cry for each day
keeps asking me to just let her die, she is every
unidentified flying object and
she is tired
of needing to stay afloat, even with wings).

I wish I didn’t need so much sleep
but it is probably my fault.

I lifted
a bookcase of pretty things, doilies beneath
porcelain faces and bottoms
mildew
smoke-stained letters

and blocked the windowpane. Light reminds me
too much of
how I became a mistress
thinking I would not take anything away,
thought I was adding more love
into the world – it is
too full.

Darkness is absence, darkness is my
own creation.

I spent my allowance on it
to pretend I am still young enough for bad men to
want to play dolls
with me, twist their heads around backwards
so they will never know of their
private parts

never be like me.

stars spilled out from the night sky
into morning, mourning,
and
so did your skin.

please know, your
voice is
louder than any gunshot now
even as new bullets echo against
your gravestone.

If moments between breaths were made of pure
Raw
Unaltered distance,
I would have cursed my own skin for standing between us when we had the chance.
Because now that the miles are filling up my lungs
My heart won't beat in rhythm
And every muscle aches to run back home.

I need a plan.
The consistency,
Something dependable.
The earth is on a schedule
The moon waxing and waning
The tides coming in and out
It's slow rotation
And oncoming seasons
The things I have come to rely on.
Today was an earthquake.
The planet shook in it's boots
As ceilings crumbled
And pipes burst
And lives snapped.
It was like the world stopped turning.
In the grand scheme of things,
Fault lines have shifted
Relieved of their tension
Regardless of my plans
Something needed to change.
It never comes when you want it to.
But no matter what happens,
The tides will continue to
Breathe in
And breathe out
Right on schedule
As we pick up the pieces again.

There's
nothing more
in this world
that I want
than to be loved.

There's
nothing more
in this world
that I want
than to never love again.

The cold is all I've ever known.
My lonely heart is made of frost.
Never has it beaten yet,
not once has it been lost.

The heavy clouds that fills the sky
delivers ice and snow,
and every day I fiercely pray
for winds of spring to blow.

My brittle bones are aching,
longing for her touch.
A smile warmer than the sun
and eyes that shine as such.

She'll set my heart ablaze with love.
She'll kiss me on the lips
and through my body heat will spread
from toes to fingertips.

We stare into each others' eyes,
naked to the bone.
Still fully dressed, though, we know now
we'll never be alone.

Forever will I love her,
my summer buttercup,
and all she has to do
is simply showing up.