I saw you today and my heart jumped into my throat.
I felt fire creeping up my arteries and threatening to burn straight through the thin skin of my throat and my chest.
I should have tattooed a giant chestpiece there, like Magen’s, because that’s what it felt like,
and then at least I could have said that I had a reason for it to hurt and tighten up.

What do you think? Do you think about it, what happened?

The vindictive side of me, which has never been very strong, wants you to think about it everyday like I did.

She wants you to pain in ways you haven’t before,
to remember what it felt like to hold me against your bare and skinny chest,
to hear my breathing as you slept,
to smell my hair as it crept onto your pillow from my thrashing in my sleep.

She wants you to remember kissing me,
the fire between us, the incredible passion that could have been.

She wants you to feel miserable at the thought that you will never ******* lips again.

You will never again bite my neck and send flames down my spine.
You will never again lock eyes with me and smile at the thought of the future.
You will never again feel my fingers running through your hair,
pulling and tangling and massaging your scalp,
as my breath tickles the small hairs of your neck and your ear,
my silent and kissless way of kissing you.

Then I remember that you thrive on the dramatic, that you would only use this misery as fuel for your grimaces,
as coals to burn behind your beautiful but hard brown eyes,
as firewood to increase your attractiveness to others.

“A man with a monologue can steal your heart,” is what we said last week.
It should have been,
“A man with a sadness can steal your soul,” because that’s what almost happened.

You have a sadness, sometimes.
Not often.
Not everyone sees it, but I imagine more people notice that you think.
You aren’t always happy as you want people to think. You aren’t the clown at all times.
Sometimes you think about sad things,
remember how she lied to you for months and tried to lie to you again.

She is just as bad as you are.
You can’t man up and she can’t tell the truth.
You’re perfect for each other.

*When I leaned in close to you, you kissed your fear instead of me.

Is this being an adult?
Sleeping over at a friend’s house
making out, keeping each other warm
splitting in the morning over sticky notes
departing separately to the same place
pretending I didn’t feel my bone marrow on fire for you last night
pretending I didn’t stare into your eyes and search for some sense of a person, some emotion, some message
buying breakfast alone with my hair tangled and last night’s shirt wrinkled
drinking coffee spiked with magic juice that’ll make your face disappear from my mind or taunt me with your voice for the rest of the day, however it pleases.

*When we were made, we were set apart.

Christmas lights wrapped up in my hands, the only light in the room, presents still under the tree which is dim now for losing its little stars,
broken glass from ornaments that shattered in the struggle littering the floor like land mines of pain and blood, you did this so that I would **** you,
your jaw lying slack open and your eyes are closed which is lucky because now that I recognize you I would try to revive you and since I know you’re dead and I killed you I understand, that this was your intention because suicide wouldn’t grant you entry to Heaven and
this Christmas season has just ripped at you too much like it does every year.
I should have known it when I noticed how quickly you emptied a bottle every night into your eggnog for holiday cheer and into your coffee every morning for a pick-me-up and into your empty glass in the afternoon just because you were thirsty.

I am so frightened of you sometimes.
You have such control and such sway over me.

You know some part of me is sweet and compassionate,
that I'll always be available to listen,
that I couldn't push a person away and especially not you, you scoundrel.

You would take my heart
and crush it into dust
to be sprinkled in my eyes as a final insult.
You would accept my love,
slide it into your back pocket,
and then use it to make yourself more charming so that more ladies would line up.

You're a ******* and a scoundrel.
You're mean.

And then, very rarely, I see a glimpse of you that makes my heart leap with hope.
You stare at me just too long,
touch my arm or say my name,
and I let slip those memories of being held and being kissed,
they slip to the forefront of my mind and my being and I am without knowledge,
I am below the stars and it's raining and you have given me life with a smile.
I do not even need kisses.
I only want smiles.
Being touched by you and kissing you means so little. You would freely touch everyone and you would freely kiss all women, if it were allowed.

And then you bite my neck,
and I remember that you are a manipulator,
a cursed filthy ******* that only wants me for his ego.
I am your prize.
You are a scavenger and I am your prize, and you will eat me or mate with me if literature has anything to say about it.
You would have me for your supper if only I could cook and prepare myself for you.
You would devour my existence and my blood and my body if only no one would know it was you.
You are a thief.

All my thoughts are of you and that makes me sick.

I would be your supper,
sweet and divine and swallowed whole like a snake consuming rats or lizards.

And now you ruined rain for me, too
As well as cloudy night skies that look like dawn at midnight
And waffles with butter
And the blinking of streetlights as they sigh for me

Give me your back.
I'll dig my claws into your spine,
And dare you move I'll rip it from you.

He's only a mean, vicious cloud in the sky of my heart.
The sun still blazes behind him, but he will always loom overhead,
Spilling droplets of bromine that stain my skin,
Spilling droplets of ethanol that blind me.
I cast down hailstones the size of his new love's eyes,
Eyes which will inevitably spill their own pearls as expressions of the heartache he delivers so well.

Your lips are dry like mine, and the stubble on your upper lip and cheeks scratches my face.
I can tell you are exactly what I want in bed.
You are fun, energetic, controlling, a little bit selfish so I will actually have to work, too.
I don’t let anything happen, though,
as much as my gut and my blood want it to happen,
because I’ve given my heart and my brain joint custody and they both know you’re a terrible decision,
that especially being in your bed and
smelling your skin and
touching your hair and
even looking at you in public is a risk.

I want to be in your body and your brain and your heart,
but you just don’t feel as intensely as I do, probably about anything,
because you’re just a boy,
you’re just a person with priorities and thoughts and control,
and I’m just a girl,
I’m just a bag of bones and blood and dreams. I feel and you don’t. You just don’t.

I am made of bones and blood and dreams.
I am made of hopes and fear and adrenaline.
I am made of tears and teeth and tangled hair.
I am made of loathing and gluttony and predatory instincts.
I am made of skin and curves and fingertips.
I am made of orange and blue and brown.

You could be so much to me.
Your body wants to. Your body wants to hold mine, you are my fire at night, you let me put my cold ******* feet on your legs and keep them there so they would warm up.
You want to. Your body wants this, it wants mine,
it wants to feel my skin and my lips and my nails.
Your hair wants to be tangled in my fists and pulled tight.
Your hips want to crush mine with your weight,
to match the heat of our bodies face to face.
Your hands want to curl around mine.
I felt it, for just a few minutes you held mine like a father holds his child’s little fists,
or like a lover holds the blessed fingers of his companion’s hands close so that they will not stray.

The fist, that is our motif.
I want to punch you, to hit you on the *** and in the face and against your chest.
I want to wrap your hair around my fists and press your cheeks to my closed hands.

How fickle my heart and how woozy my eyes.

In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die.
Where you invest your love, you invest your life.

How wise you are, Mumford, you and your Sons.

Will I do this again to myself?
Will I continue to climb into your bed,
to press my tired cheek against your tired chest,
to wrap my weary fingers around your lion’s mane?
Will I keep testing my emotional limits on you, Mt. Kilimanjaro of the West?
I have to ask myself these questions and decide what to do. My sanity for the next month or so depends on it.
I made a promise to myself not to blindly and needlessly give away my affections,
not to accept love and touch where it didn’t belong.
Have I broken this promise already?
Have I already given up on myself, on my will, on my future, on my ability to dream and reshape myself?

I don’t know if I can stay away from you. I truly don’t know.
The smart part of me, my brain,
my dying brain,
reasonably denies you as an option.
My brain listens to you when you say you will break my heart.

My heart doesn’t hear that at all.

Can you lie next to her and give her your heart, your heart
As well as your body, and can you lie next to her and confess your love, your love
As well as your folly?

But tell me now where was my fault, in loving you with my whole heart?

Lead me to the truth and I will follow you my whole life

I felt your bones,
for you are so thin.
I felt your stretched muscles and a hot need to hold you close to my body.
I have not cried about it yet but I feel tears beating against the backs of my eyes,
which you said were pretty, and Kelso said they had sunflowers inside of them on good days
and when they are green I can’t stop smiling because I think when my eyes are green they are sexier and prettier
and that it’s God’s way of telling me to be confident,
that I am lovely and worthy and must work for the things I desire.

You used to be a dream,
A candle, tall and thin, still aflame from your previous owner and user,
your queen and your abuser,
your victim and your accuser.

I knew the roads of your past with her so well;
how could I not, when she was the air you breathed?
Your exhale was her name,
your eyes glazed at the thought of her sweet laugh,
and I was her in your arms if the lights were off and the clock had already sent the princess home. 

We never were, and now I am happy of that.
You could never have spoken my name as sweetly as you do hers.
You could never have remembered the freckles on my cheeks as perfectly as you do hers.
You could never have been inside of my soul as you are in hers. 

I think of you now and it's as if I am also a candle,
small and quiet,
the barest light,
hidden from most and content to be so.
A king will find me
and light me
as your queen did for you,
setting you on fire for the world and for love and for haste,
for youth turned to memories of candy and salt. 

Until then, I sleep.