I kissed your eyelids awake
              willed them open
                           to see the warm brown
               coffee mugs behind.
I want to drink from you and
                                                   keep drinking,
             and inhale every ring of smoke
                         that rises from your lips
because the universe inside you
is beautiful,
             crystalline
             with biased clarity.
I wish you would be
                               part of me,
                                            cannibal galaxy

I mean
      that I am trying to tame
      the wildfire in my heart
      built on the Embers from a
      domesticated bonfire
      during a winter many springs ago.
      i thought i had stamped it
                                                         out
                                                      out out
I mean
      that I am not trying to run
      i'm just trying to move
      in a different direction
      the scent of a breeze caught my nose
      and as i am a red tailed fox
                                                       i follow
I mean
      that sometimes i feel like
      my dreams are much bigger than me
      but even if i am a ladybug
      i am still as big as the
sea.

this is what my heart
                   looks like:

           it is            geometric
                                       and angular
           there are                      dark corners
                                                        a­nd sharp edges  
But sometimes in the
sunlight some of my
sides look so
bright

you make
                 my
   hands           shake
             like my
              aunt's
   hands           shake
like they haven't forgotten
                            the weight
of the last cigarette they held
even after her precious lungs
                       had forgotten
how to breathe.

I remember when I was in the hospital and I didn't sleep for two days straight because I swore to god that if I did the demons would step out from under the bed and seep into my head.

I remember when it was three am, and I was shaken awake from the girl three doors down shrieking from the night terrors that her mother embedded into her skull with her fist and a belt when she was eight. But, they were then stored away until she was thirteen years old and a man swore that he'd beat her if she didn't cooperate. So, now they hide during the day, and creep back up when the sun falls.

I remember when I witnessed a boy unintentionally scratch at his skin until he bleed for an hour because the voices inside of his mind told him that if he didn't hurt anyone else, he would just have to hurt himself. and he swears he'd never hurt anyone besides himself.

I remember when I met a girl who had cuts up and down her arms and legs from when her mother told her she'd never survive the world because she isn't good enough. But, I swear to god that she was the strongest person I've ever met.

I remember when my roommate stayed up all night rocking with bloodshot eyes and deep purple circles underneath of them because she swore that if she slept the monsters inside of her head would crawl out and bleed into her soul.

I remember when the boy five doors down hit the wall so hard that it shook the entire unit because he hallucinated a man and a little girl trying to strangle him, and he swore he could feel the noose around his neck.  

even through all of this, for some odd reason teenagers think it's lovely to have deep scars and to hear voices telling them to **** themselves and everyone around them. I swear, nothing is lovely about demons eating at your brain and thoughts.

I remember when it was four am, and I was up weeping from the fact that people think my suffering is lovely.

I can swear to you, it's not.

help me i am
 
                  d
                  e
                  k
       h        o
            o

from the way
you laugh to
the movement
of your hands
when you tell
a story. i do
not want to be
with anyone
else.