Infatuation seeps into me
And spills away.
A constant flow of desire,
It goes as fast as it comes.

You're a distraction that I don't mind losing myself in.
You're a beautiful view from my grey window.
A peripheral pleasure.

I try to keep you out of my mind
When you're out of my sight,
But you've found me in my sleep.
I keep wondering if I've made my way into yours.

And when you're in sight, you encapsulate my mind.
I let you dominate the few senses through which I can experience you
And I fantasize about how you could appeal to the senses that haven't experienced you.

I can't discern the reason,
But I've started contemplating my escape.
Not a thing has changed between us,
And yet my heart has gone cold.

But maybe that's the problem.
I shift shapes like water bends and twists
To make its way over rocks,
Under fallen trees,
To a sea of possibility.
And nothing between us has changed.

Your sweetness still sings.
Your love still finds shape in words,
Kisses, and touches.
I used to think that was all I ever needed,
But I'm starting to question my desires.

Lately my desires favor passing glances,
Coded messages, and working late.
My desire favors daydreaming
Of secret touches
And finding ways to get closer
To familiar faces full of seductive obscurity.

Maybe my desire just needs time
To find its way back to you.
I'm praying that it does.

My arms like vines,
I wrap myself.
White knuckles,
I grip my skin
Like the seat of a shaky airplane.

Holding tightly,
I try to steady trembling
That undulates through me.
The teasing provocation
And amorous taunting
Leaves me wanting today.

But I bite my wrists
To extract my attention
From my cavernous mind
And fix it on the skin about to break.

I'm itching for softness
To cover me like armor
And protect me from the jagged edges
That protrude in me.
I need some sweetness
To quell the bitterness
That saturates my mouth.

Be soft and sweet for me,
I know that you can.
Be tender and warm,
Or leave me to cry.

I'll constrict and wring it out of myself,
If I have to,
In time.

You feel like a warm day,
I feel like a burning building.

You shine and glisten,
I scorch and crumble.

You rise like the sun,
I detonate like a bomb.

You look like a rolling hillside,
I look like a blind cliff.

You go on for miles,
I’m a dead end.

You’re a gentle descent,
I’m an unsurvivable fall.

You sound like a country song,
I sound like an elegy.

You’re a sweetly ringing chord,
I’m a tearful, sobbing goodbye.

You’re a nostalgic love story,
I’m a painful flashback.

You taste like summer fruit,
I taste like rotting teeth.

You snap like a crisp bite,
I decay like a neglected body.

You grow and give,
I deteriorate and decompose.

You smell like warm bread,
I smell like burnt toast.

You’re a perfect morning,
I’m a worst nightmare.

I'm snared in my own trap,
Caught off guard by the heartbreak
That has caught up with me.
As if I didn't part the jaws
And step on the pan.

I am my own prey,
Wrapped in the sticky web I spun.
Baited by thrill, drawn out of boredom,
I burry my fangs in my own flesh.

I followed my more capricious self
Into a lonely room,
Hoping she would fan my flames.
But she's backed me into a corner
And brought me to my knees.

I've lured myself close
With the shine of my knife.
I captured my fascination
And held the blade to my own throat.
"Speak," I dare myself.

I held my own hand.
With tenderness and trickery,
Distraction and hope,
I walked myself to the edge of a dizzying cliff
And said "you know what to do."

Now I'm not done letting myself suffer yet.
I will watch myself thrash in torment
Just a little longer.
I will keep biting
Until I'm bored of the taste.

I will tower over myself
And witness my own cowering.
The cold edge will stay pressed to my pulse
Until I've made my point.

I will not let myself turn away from the drop,
I will not cut a path back down the mountain.
I will wait and watch
Until I outgrow my fear of heights.

I will keep crying
Until my eyes dry up.
I will keep grieving
Until the memories stop hurting.
I will keep loving him,
Until my heart lets go.

Then I will be ready
To do it all again.

I roll up my skirt
And carve silence into my skin.
My foot on the gas,
I close my eyes
And let the noise trickle out of me.

Up on the hill,
I lay drunk among the headstones,
Crying into darkness
Until I fall asleep on a pillow of hyacinth.

I find comfort with the dead.
Here, my tears soak into the earth
That cradles their bones
And I imagine that the hurt they carry
Is laid to rest just the same.

The rows of past lovers, sisters, and friends
Emit a quiet understanding.
They remind me that this oscillating ache
Will one day return to the dirt.
My torment is just as temporary as my joy,
Which is as transient as all things.

Though the veil of suffering will lift,
It is only a matter of time before it falls again.
And knowing that respite will arrive
Does not bring it to me any sooner.

So I will scream and beg
For even a moment of solace.
My fists pound the grass
And I writhe in my agony,
Knowing that I look like a child.

But my fictional family
That lie six feet beneath me
Reach up their phantom arms
And embrace me with a kind of love
That can only be found in the delusions
That I fabricate to comfort myself.

Their grasp keeps me from joining them
In their graves
And lifts me to stumble home in the dark.

I have hurt my heart,
I have treated it cruelly.
But it made me feel like a fool,
Daydreaming of a different life
Where I am loved in return
The way that I have loved my heart.

I have wrung myself out for my heart,
Gave my heart shelter, cooked it dinner,
Gave it what little I possess
So that it may dig itself out of the hole its been in
And one day love me the way that I have loved it.

But my heart did not dig,
It settled into the home that I had given it
And blew me kisses from the bottom of its ditch.
And so I looked at my heart with anger and hurt,
Because I gave it every opportunity to reciprocate the love that I have given it,
And still my heart did not dig.

So, my heart, I need you to leave
Because I cannot keep throwing you rope
That you will not catch
And extending hands that you will not grasp.
I only have so much rope
And so many hands.

And I'm sorry that I have been callous,
But, my heart,
You have worn my affection paper-thin.
You have exploited my generosity,
Reached the bounds of my tenderness.

So now my heart sits alone
And so do I.
Alone together in the home we shared.
Soon, I will be alone
And without my heart,
Unsure of how to keep the empty walls
From closing in around me.