fairy whispers and inky half-formed memories beat shattered-glass moth wings against the brittle crystal cavern of your skull.

wait.

it's been a long time since you
remembered how to breathe,
and maybe that's why sometimes you sit in the surf and **** the ocean into your lungs,
and maybe that's why you smoke,
so that for thirty seconds it's okay
to look like you are choking.

inhale spun sugar and dreaming dust.
exhale chalk and emptiness.

wait.

maybe someday you will cough all the shards out of your lungs.
today you take shots so you have permission
to let the burn flicker across your face
and you jump into freezing water so you don't have to explain
why you always look like you are drowning.

it's not rest, but it's the closest thing you can remember.

maybe one day you'll stop feeling so
raw.

i don't believe in much,
but you said maybe we met for a reason and that
maybe the reason was to keep each other alive,
and it seemed as true as anything else i'd ever heard
and approximately twice as beautiful.

i don't believe in fate,
but i have ****** the wild hope into my lungs
that some cosmic force could trust me
with something this important,
that some great mysterious power
sending ripples through the stars
could have loved me enough to lead me here.

we are not the beautiful and broken.
we are the wild and the wanting and
the howl that rattles hollow bones.
we are the wounded and the wicked
and unbound.
we are the things that learned to live in the dark;
from our bones crawl the faintly-glowing bodies
that will out-survive the sun.

your lungs cough out prayers like my lungs cough out tar,
like my hands clasp bottles like your hands clasp blades,
like our hands clasp hands,
like i had never in my life heard someone's stories louder than the stars
until you told me yours on the roof of the abandoned hotel,
until i saw the universe bend tight around your words
and for once the height didn't **** the air from my lungs and
for once i thought about something other than jumping.

nothing really feels like home these days,
but there's moments with you i feel human and
i'll take all the reasons i can find
not to step out in front of a train.
i want to watch you breathe
without some great shadow-hand holding onto your lungs,
and i don't ever want you to forget how sunlight feels.

you and i, we were born survivors,
and life has a way of reclaiming scorched land,
of stretching its great green tendrils
up through sidewalk cracks.
i don't believe in much,
but god,
do i believe in us.

i loved you like a car crash.
i loved you skidding tires
and screeching brakes
and shattered glass.
i loved you three lanes shut down on the freeway.

i loved you cracked palms
and cigarette burns
and shredded skin.
i loved you mouthfuls of smoke
and blood
and prayers.
i loved you holy morning moments
and sips of coffee;
i loved you dopamine
and alprazolam.

i loved you sharp and cold and metal.

i loved you sweaty sunsets in your car
when you read the bruises on my thighs like rorsarch blots
and i traced constellations in your scars.

i loved you broken
because your shards fit so beautifully with mine.

i loved you ragged.
i loved you desperate.
i loved you hurting and wanting and whispering.

i used to wake up screaming every time i dreamed of you,
but these days i just wake up empty
and cold
and aching in the spaces your hands used to fill.

in my dream last night,
you kissed me,
and i woke up this morning
with questions and
a cold

knowing
that I don't know anything
about you is
nice
it's new
exciting
I want it to stay that way.

I want you to always be
that surprise around
the corner
I somehow
never make it to
because you're
almost too beautiful
for me to see

i know how to jump start a car and
i know thirteen different ways to light a fire and
i know that i sleep better when you're here.

i know how to make a pipe with an apple
and i know how to roll poplar bark into twine and
i know what you're afraid of.

i know that sometimes turkeys drown because they stand
with their heads thrown back in the rain.

i know all the state capitals and
i know all the books of the old testament in order and
i know how far you'd have to jump to be sure you didn't survive.
i know that my biggest fear was always the time stretched out between
today and the end and i know that
lately i am not so afraid.
i know it's at least a little bit
because of you.

i know that my lungs crave mountains
like my fingers crave dirt
like my hands crave yours.

i know how the world looks on your seventy second hour awake
and i know how thirteen tabs of acid feels and
i know how to steal things without getting caught.
i know how thirty-year-old hands squeeze
sixteen-year-old hips.
i know that "*******" isn't a compliment.

i know deep breathing techniques,
calming rituals,
and numbers for help lines i'll never call.
i know that frogs breathe through their skin
and that sometimes
they die when you touch them.

i know that i do not breathe through my skin,
no matter how often i forget.

Loving you is like wanting to know the softness of an exceptionally beautiful cloud. One can only know its touch in the form of rain.

my hands are not
soft things that you can hold onto and
even at my sweetest i'm less like honey and
more like old kool-aid and i'll
stain your lips and fingers blue
like the inky thing that slithers up my spine.

i don't remember what it's like to breathe easy.

i like the way your hands shake
and that's a weird thing to like
but i am much more cactus than flower
and i am not afraid of edges and shards.

you swallow smoke the way
i swallow metal and
wanting you makes me feel
sick again.

I used to say that
I was only a creature of the day
despite my love for
the moons glow
I sent the night away
and now all I wish
to see
is the moon
I know