DON'T YOU LOOK AT ME!

i am ravishing, but i am ruinous.
my bones are connected by chaos,
my muscles by vengeance, my
teeth by blood—i am not a sight
to behold, i am a watercolor left
to rot.

the gods gaze upon me and hang
their heads in shame, in chagrin,
in white hot resentment. i am
medusa with peony lips and a
treasonous grin—there is beauty
in this cataclysm even aphrodite
cannot touch.

DON'T YOU TOUCH ME!

destruction can be found in the
hell between my hips, in crevices
where you do not belong. please,
stay back, or i will feast upon the
warmth in your chest, the grace
on your tongue, the light that's
in your heart.

DON'T GET TOO CLOSE!

but you kiss me anyway and you
taste like reparation. oh, my baby,
i cannot get enough. you wilt and
wither under my touch and i carry
you across galaxies.

you invite me to taste you and i
swallow you whole instead. i can
learn to live with the guilt in my
throat because it's more bearable
than feeling completely

alone.

my mangled heart strings
wrap around my chest to leave
an unwanted reminder that
i love you and
i loved you and
i will love you and
it hurts.

i used to wrap myself around you
every night,
like a caterpillar that didn't want
to become a butterfly —
but time doesn't stop for anyone,
does it?

i hit the ground as soon as
i left the cocoon.
how could i possibly fly when
my heart is so heavy?

"i wanted to love you,"
you whispered one day,
"but you're just so broken."

please,
run your fingers over my edges.
tell me where it hurts —
show me where you bleed.

one heart
split in two
half price baby
are you buying?

i was never prepared
for you.

you blew me away
and then
ripped me to shreds,

a natural disaster with
no warning.

you have dealt with her damnation for far too many centuries. one day, you dare yourself to reach up and stroke her obsidian cheeks with tired, burnt fingertips. you look into her sable eyes and search for what they used to be—two bright citrine stones, young and benevolent, disappearing behind her honey-glazed grin as you wander over every mountain and through every desolate valley that graced her naked anatomy—but that girl is gone now, isn't she?

you breathe her in and she spits you out. she laughs as your skeleton crumples at her feet. she picks up your tibia and uses it to pluck the dead souls from her teeth, all except for yours. [even in this dark red light, she looks nothing less than holy.] she tortures and berates you, sets fire to your skin, yet she refuses to pluck the stars from your irises—tell me, boy, why does she still let you shine in a world shrouded by despair?

sometimes her touch isn't scalding against your flesh, sometimes you don't flinch when she runs her sharpened claws down the length of your spine. sometimes she presses greek tragedies into your tongue—you cannot tell if she loves the taste of desperation, or the fact that she still brings you to your knees.

you cry because you love it, too.

he pins you to the earth and
you can feel a lightness pulse
through his veins like ichor,
the way it was intended to flow
before your ruination.

for the first time, you feel small
beneath his gaze.

you whimper,
"what do you plan to do to me?"




he whispers,
"forgive."

you let him in;
peeled back the layers
of your skin and
showed him your bones

you thought this would
be easy, but he is not
gentle;

he takes your ribs and
breaks them apart as he
builds a home inside your
sternum

[he is no longer the breath
you exhale; he never leaves
your lungs]

he keeps you up at night;
you pray and he does not
answer and you realize that
you are so tired of all of
this

“how do you **** your god?”
you ask

[you get off your
knees]

don't wanna be
loveless
just wanna
love less

pink plush lips against my clavicle
breathe into me a life that i never knew
before you

venus was once a little girl until she was forced to be a vision.

there is an innocence in her eyes as she runs her tongue up your neck, along your jaw, over your lips, ever so slightly, because this is foreign to her: passion with the promise of love, not lust, a heart with no sharp edges. you tell her that you see her, that you love the heart in her flesh, not the divinity in her mouth, and she cries out loud, rosewater tears from opaline eyes melting like snowflakes on your tongue, they taste like candied grapefruit—still bittersweet.

she paws at your pectorals, makes a home inside your lungs, paints peonies on your eyelids with the blush covering her cheeks, you embody every single thing that was ripped away from her, all at once.

kiss me, you fool, she weeps, let me taste all the love i have missed.

you will give her every last drop

he is a tattered heart with blood-stained teeth. he needs you to be silk sheets and a pink sunrise, but you are neither of those things. rather, you are canvas constructed of guilt and hot desire. he ruins his ****** hands down your neck, your *******, your thighs. you learn to love the taste of all the hurt he's caused because it's

all for you.

he needs you to be a proper woman, strong and dignified with rose petal cheeks and a bounteous womb, but you are nothing more than a glutton, consuming every spewed whimper born through impatient fingers grasping at his royal bones. you dig your nails into his flesh, you burn constellations into his back, you make sure his eyes are closed.

you are nothing that he needs, but you are everything right now. you wear the revelation like a drunken king adorns a crown: with pride, with arrogance, without feeling its weight. you straddle his waist and sink onto a throne made for a worthier queen. there is red hot blood in his veins, golden ichor in yours—you are not of the same world. the stars rattle when he breathes your name.

they die out when he considers how you are not the one they should be burning for.

the ringing in my ears
sings a melody that
only u would know
by heart