i am losing my hands to razor blades again.
my demons wont stop clawing at the walls
of my heart shaped pandora’s box.

i am forcing laughter so hard that my ribs are sore.
and you are still so beautiful that it hurts to look.

oh what a pleasure to be
the cigarettes you keep on smoking,
i could creep inside you so softly.
baby could you sneak into me?
**** me quietly from the inside out

i am crying so hard that my eyes may bust out of my head.
you didn’t like it when i called my self abuse a
public display of affection for you.

did you rethink your “i love you more”?
were you embarrassed by the bruises
that my little fists left in your door?

i am always the one that loves more.

you are a
devil hiding in the details
i would rather not explore.
waiting behind every corner,
an omen I try to ignore.
you hold me by my throat
every single night in my sleep.
kissing, shoving your split tongue
down my throat to muffle my screams.
a kind of haunting no one else knows.
a nightmare like sequence,
some kind of hellish dream.
I wake up to find you
sleeping peacefully beside me.

a kiss does not always mean
"i love you"

sometimes it means
"i am sorry"
and sometimes it means
"i have to go"

i have had kisses that taste like
alcohol, sweat and stinging regret.
i have had kisses that were laced
with desperation as their tongue
wrestled with mine.

i have had kisses that left me feeling
more empty about myself than good.
i have had kisses that never should
have happened, ones i wanted to take back.
jesus christ, i wish i could.

there are kisses i have given
that were so passionately deep
only because i was trying to find something,
maybe searching for the thing that
no one could ever find inside of me.

there are kisses that have broken my heart.
and there are kisses that never happened,
but still managed to make me fall apart.

kisses that made me a mess of ****** cliches.
kisses that kept warning me,
kept signaling me to stay away.

i have the nasty habit of
holding onto things and never letting go.
even when the bruises and the gashes up
and down my arms tell me so.

i am so much stronger inside of my head than out.
but the fact that you could never love me the
way i needed you to love me
****** me up more than you will ever know.

i cried so long, so hard, for so many days
that noah didn’t even have time to build a big enough ark.

you told me to break my back for you, and i did.
you watched me build it back up into a bridge
so you could walk, sprint, jump across it.
and i was just happy your skin was so close to mine

my concrete spine absorbed the angry heat
of your late night terrors and hurricane mood swings.
but all my desires were abstract concepts,
things you could not meet.

i began to crumble beneath you and begged,
”let me hold your hand and i will let you
pull the rope that’s wrapped itself so comfortably
around my neck. please. leave me hanging for the last time”

i have not let anyone break my heart like that again.
no one has gotten close enough to
take a tour inside the coffin of my heart,
to catch the scent of a love
that has yet to finish decaying.

look for me in the obituaries.
cut me out and tack me next to
the newspaper clippings of the people
that you sent missing all because of
your indifference to intimacy.

and maybe i am pathetic in the way that orpheus was
when he tried to raise eurydice from the dead.
because sometimes things are best
when we leave them alone to rest.

because sometimes when we don’t let go,
we find ourselves in hell again.
alone again.
with nothing to call our own.
again.

the crickets sometimes sound
like your broken record of a voice
on repeat.
scolding me for making something
out of nothing,
and still neglecting everything.

i no longer dream.

there are intervals of lost
consciousness and sometimes
i am running through the
forest trying to call for you.

it has been three years.
i stopped counting the days.
when you shook me till the poems
fell from my eyes.

i no longer cry.

falling asleep to the tune
of amy singing to me
that i will wake up alone.
the trash is piling up,
and there is no more room in the sink.
i have not left this spot,
on my bed.
i cannot lift this weight over my head.

sometimes i see a flash of a memory
when i am riding on the 8PM train.
i nod off,
smile at a stranger
give up my seat and pretend like these people
need me.

i fall asleep on the couch,
there are crumbs piling up
on the floors of my house.
i can not get out.
i can’t
get
out.

she said she’d wait forever
so she took the pills and
chased them down with fine wine,
picked up the phone
and waited till the end
for you to pick up the line.

was it selfish?
was it romantic?
was it kind?

she was a ******* come to life,
she would have been such a prize.
a hand on the curve of her hip-
you couldn’t handle it.

there were
grainy photos of you both,
some fancy motel
maybe by the name of
the shangri-la.

there are moments you can see
just how deep her sadness stretched
inside of her,
just how deep her need stretched
inside of her,
for you.

there are state of the unions
adresses and inaugural china.
long lasting feasts.
she might as well have just been
the lady hiding in the cake,
the lady singing you to sleep.
everybody’s *******
could’ve been a reality
for you.

she said she’d wait forever
and you probably passed it off as histrionics.
and maybe you couldn’t live
with that sort of guilt.

she said she’d wait forever
so she did.
she picked up the phone,
pills and fine wine.
waited for you in this world
and ready to wait until the end of time.