I cannot hear them when they climb the corners that surround me,
But I feel their fur and claws when they wrap their arms around me.
Their teeth pressed against my skin, their touch is like a lash,
I see them sometimes, barely there, gray, like truth and ash.

Your kisses always taste
Like ***** and cigarettes,
So that now alcohol
Always tastes like your mouth,
And wrapping my lips around a cigarette
Feels like your tongue sneaking past my teeth.

I suppose it started when I saw you smile down at her
And I thought to myself
That despite all I had said before, I could
Give you children just to see you smile at them
The way you smiled at that baby girl
Just to be the one to bring you that kind of Joy.
But I wasn’t sure until you said the words to me
And my stomach boiled with the need to repeat those words to you
To push them up my throat and let them spill
Over my lips, flowing like a stream.
I hope you can forgive me my lack of courage that I did not,
Instead I waited until you were asleep and I pressed the words
Into your skin like kisses, and I traced the letters
With my fingertips

I want to taste your smile.
I want to know if your mouth is sweeter
When it grins against mine.

You flirt with me shamelessly
Like your girlfriend isn't right there
Like she isn't in the same bed as us
You touch my skin and I bite your chest
And you ask for a real kiss as she stares on.
I think I love you for it.

I reach across the console and touch the delicate skin
Covering your cheekbones.
It’s smooth and soft under the stubble from your beard.
That beard that feels so good
Scratching across my sensitive neck.
You never put your hands places they shouldn't be anymore.
Why did you stop touching me?

What do you look like on the inside?
Do you bleed red like the rest of us?
I wonder if you’re even human.
You’re so beautiful it doesn't seem possible.
Sometimes (all the time) I want to cut you open.
I want to see your liver and your intestines.
I want to see if your lungs expand the same way mine do.
Perhaps if I look at your brain I will understand how you think.

Pretty boy come closer,
I want to press my skin against yours.
Pretty boy move against me,
I want to feel the slide.
Pretty boy talk to me,
Your voice is so sweet.
Pretty boy touch me,
You’re electric in my veins.

There are a few of you,
One or two of you
And I don’t know what to do with you,
But I want to be in a room with you
Stripped to the skin,
Writhing in sin,
I want to be taking you all the way in.

I heard a wise man once say
That the older we get
The more our lives used to be perfect.
I never want to live my life that way.
I want there to be imperfections every step of the way.
Imperfections and flaws and failures
Are what make life exciting and fun and enjoyable.
I don’t want to look back on my life and remember
The perfect moments.
I want to remember the nights
When the cops almost caught us,
When we drank until we couldn't see straight,
And then we drank some more.
I want to remember the nights
When we couldn't see through the smoke,
When our friends fell down wells
And we set off fire alarms trying to rescue them.
I want to live this way because imperfections
Make life perfect.

When I dream of you,
The air is heavy in my lungs
And the floor slides up
To meet my knees.
There is broken glass on the bed, but that’s
Alright,
I’m already bleeding.

Your skin is so soft,
Only one pound of pressure to break it;
To watch the blood flow, (To watch your veins empty)
To paint you shades of red.
Would you do it if I asked?
If I begged prettily enough
Would you tear open your flesh
And let me watch
As the blood drips down your arms?

It’s amazing how you've changed, little girl,
Different in so many ways.
It’s amazing you’re not the same little girl
I knew in my younger days.

I miss
Smoking with you,
Because that’s when we
Talked.
I miss
Drinking with you,
Because that’s when we
Laughed.
I miss
Kissing you,
Because that’s when we
Touched.
I miss
Smiling with you,
Because that’s when we were
Happy.

Two weeks clean
Suddenly transforms
Into two weeks
*****.
But I cannot bring myself to regret it
Not while I feel so
Satisfied
Watching myself
Bleed

I like the way the smoke drips out of your mouth
Like it doesn't want to leave
(I wouldn't want to leave either)

I like the way your clothes wrap around your body
Like they want to be as close as possible
(I would cling too)

I like the way your eyelids flutter
Like they want to protect your eyes from the world
(I want to protect you too)

Oh wind of hazardous nature and doleful misty raindrops
Whipped against my face,
What a contradiction thou art.
You cause such painful lashings against my skin, and yet
The leaves dance gaily in thy wake.