You
       take my hand and lead me
into the fire

You
       put your hand on my back
                                          and push me
into the dark

I
  touch your arm
                          and ask
how you feel

I
take my place
                    by your waist
and I kneel

I am folding beneath you.
I am losing my shape.
I am fighting to breathe
             with little gasps
         fighting to speak
              with tiny murmurs

I am holding onto you
                                 while the rest of me
                          falls away.

I stopped bragging about my vices when
you reminded me that I existed before my addictions.

I stopped blaming love for knowing me falsely when I realized that I had never really met it before.

I realized that my obsessions ran shallow because I thought that it would be hard to quit them,
but it was harder to hold back
eternity;
the infinite moments that I felt
had existed
before I did.

As though the love I have for you was
pre-
determined
pre-
ordained
pre-
ternaturally formed.

As if the way I had organized my messy human emotions into neat little
boxes
   &
lines
had all been an errand to occupy my mind.

Before I loved you-
I loved escaping.

Any window
or stairway
or back-alley-path

that I could shimmy-down sideways
and avoid
things like

small talk
or
free verse
or
early mornings,

were the lanes I would dwell in,
hide in,
reside in.

But when I'm with you-
and when I'm without you-
(because now you permeate everything I do)
everything that I do is tinged with you;
Your colour
Your contrast
Your pigment
Your hue.

As if you are a light ray that I can now see,
my spectrum has gained the most beautiful wave.

And in this ultraviolet light,
the

small talk
and
free verse
and
early mornings

are sort of
breathtaking.

I say sort of, because while I gasp, you give me air.

And how can I choke when my heart's already gone?

When my skin is electric and my soul is
on fire

like some sort of creature that's been born from the flames.

And everything I thought that I needed
has now been
erased
and
replaced
and
preceded

by this uncontrollable urge
to eat you
alive
to have you
inside
to *** when
you die.

And this monster that you've made of me is hungry
and *****
and cannot concentrate on anything but
you

And I swear to God
or the grave
(and really, they're the same)
that if I love you any more
I will be ruptured in two
which would leave me a quarter of a person
because I'm only whole when I'm with you.

Like the four-legged beings that Zeus ripped apart-

I've searched for you always
I've searched for your heart.

my name is lillith and I just want a cup of coffee and a ripe avocado and for people to answer their cell phones when you call and movies not to lose their imagination halfway through and purses to be big enough to fit a book inside and for people to stop singing songs from Frozen and I want to wake up when the sun is shining and go to bed when the moon is out and to write in a notebook that reminds me of myself and to drive fast on a straight road by a glittering ocean and every day I want to work up a sweat and an appetite and an eagerness to dream and really I don't think I'm asking for too much in fact I think we should all ask for a little bit more especially from ourselves and definitely for others and I could go on but what's the point in making lists if you never cross an item off

I can smell the cigarettes.
I haven't smoked in days
But I can smell the cigarettes
in between your legs.

I can taste the coke cut up,
running down my throat.
I can smell the cigarettes,
even with no smoke.


I can see an image of
a woman lying bare
I can see the ink she's buried
underneath her hair

***** becomes public when
we let ourselves believe
that smoking isn't bad for you.
that you will never leave.

if I could capture
you
and me
if I could capture
what
you see
if I could capture
the
capturing

I'd capture-keep,
the
long legs/
black hair/
smoke suspended in the air

a cat with whiskers wiser than/
the man who's broken eggs again

the shells that feed the mystery
because WHO THE **** COOKS EGGS AT MIDNIGHT
and I swear to god if one more person looks at me seductively
I'll rip apart the
leather jackets
jean vests
studded flannels
studded chests

because life just never seems as good/
as retrospectively.

as looking back on someone else's/
frozen memories.

and the worst-best part of everything
is when it seems so real,
that you could become one of them
if only you could feel.

do you know when you've had a really long day, and you stop at the grocery store to buy dinner, and you don't really want to cook so you go to the deli section and you think, I could go for some cheese tonight, so you head to the fridge carousel and you pick up some cheddar and it says it's been aged for two years and it looks pretty tender and you think, This is some nice cheese, but as you put it in your basket you see another cheese and it's gouda and it's smoked and you think, Gouda? I hadn't even thought about gouda, so then you think about gouda and you start to notice all these other kinds of cheeses and you see that the gouda is lactose free and even though you're not lactose intolerant that somehow intrigues you, and you don't know a lot about cheese so you think maybe it's because gouda comes from goats not cows and then you think How come people aren't intolerant to goat's milk? so then you look back at the cheddar and now it doesn't seem so nice even though it's been aged for two years and it's pretty tender and you thought it was nice before, so then you put the cheddar back but as soon as you let it go you think What if I don't like gouda? and so you put the gouda down and now you're standing there by that refrigerated cheese carousel without a ******* thing in your hands and you get sort of sad all of a sudden and you wonder if you're ever going to pick a cheese and even if you do will it ever be the right cheese and suddenly you start to tear up but you think, No, I'm better than crying in a grocery store, so you pick up the cheddar again because trust your first gut right? and you pay for your cheese and you walk back to your car but as you sit there in the parking lot getting ready leave you realize that maybe it's not about the ******* cheese and it's never about the ******* cheese and maybe you don't even like the ******* cheese that much anyway and so you kind of scrub your fingers into your scalp and pull your hair and hit the steering wheel once or maybe twice and your cheeks are hot and wet and it's hard to see so you rub your eyes dry and when you look up there's an elderly asian man watching you freak out a little bit in your car by yourself, and so you slowly start your car and pull out of the parking lot and as you drive away you wonder if the elderly asian man ever cries and if he ever can't decide on a cheese and if he ever thinks that he doesn't even like cheese at all either.

doesn't this city just make you want to break things
doesn't this city just make you ******* hate things
doesn't this city just make you want to run
want to invest
in a knife
or a gun

don't all these people just drive you insane
and don't all these people always ask your name
just to forget
in a sec-ond
why they even came

into this world,
for shame
for shame

and wasn't it just the other ******* day
that you thought to yourself

maybe I can escape

and wasn't it just
the other ******* day
you told yourself

I can break the **** away

but here you are in the same **** place

and here you are
losing the rodent race.

because money is tight
and morals are loose

and who gives a single ****,
if their neck's in a noose

I mean, baby, or *******,
all these little games,
come on baby,
my *******
we're wasting away

bourbon,
no-
whiskey
the devil in a drink

he pulls me straight past hades,
to deeper depths I sink

And it's the scars that you can't see
that run the ******* deepest

and who are you to say
I shouldn't ******* drink this

How dare you look at me
and say I shouldn't smoke,

I look at you-
and encourage you to choke.

Let's talk about a sunset.
Let's talk about an apricot smeared across the sky.
About the plum that leaks in around the edges
And the calm and excitement we feel
For the following night
And the dandelion morning that we call a ****.