you caused this fire
with a dimpled smile and a plane ticket
can’t suffocate a blaze with a match
petrol running down my legs
wanna watch me burn at the stake?
7,000 miles of wildfires called me by your name

like a moth drawn to a flame
we kissed on the light up floor
your fingers inside of me, it was divine to me
surrendering my soul to my god
left my lipstick scars all over you

i ate the apple from the softness of your hand
our garden of eden was no holy land
i let you knock at the door of my spine
no malice in my voice, come inside
but baby, you weren’t expecting
me to multiply

like a moth drawn to a flame
i bit your tongue in the break of day
wanted to taste your blood for a change
nothing like a little emotional
devastation to get me through it

yell it más, señor
til your vocal cords are ******
oath taken in sacred silence
tragedy and insanity and is
it all a game to you?
because you hid while i sought
yell it más, señor
yell it más

and when i told you of the flower blossoming within
you cried like a boy for his mother
you see, there’s no way we can keep it
not for your career

and the next day on the 405
my soul wrung empty inside
suffocating loneliness, all-consuming
75mph, nearly opened my door
told my therapist i wanted the asphalt to eat me alive

they took me to the madhouse
while you had a pint and a laugh miles from my hospital bed
they said
“she wants to end her life with a baby inside, oh, what a terrible state she’s in”

the doctor watched me as i cried
with cigarette breath and roaming hands
forced the wand inside of me
at the same time i jumped over the ledge
and did you know i laid in silence
while he whispered in my ear

“good girl, it’s a girl”, you see, oh?
can’t you feel the joy?
of creating something like God herself?
like vines sprouting from the soil?
but Oceania, so much panic, yeah
too far, didn’t wanna come near
my ash-strewn wreckage

like a moth drawn to a flame
blazing light, burned just right
i wanted you to suffocate my pain
pretended it didn’t exist for our

transpacific love games
i’ll be Marilyn and you be Errol
the actor who can’t survive any longer
and the one who devoured a woman whole

yell it más, señor
oh god i’m bleeding on the bathroom floor
so much sacrifice for paradise
but isn’t this what it’s for?
tragedy and insanity and
oh no, it’s all a game, i see
yell it más, señor
yell it más

aliel
enaj

so come on, baby
the walls are thinner
than the skins that shelter us

and i've placed myself
in the bruise of a body
that has not felt like home in years

sleep flees the corners of my eyes,
my pulse curls around my shaking hands,
and the shelled echoes of my heart startle and stir

and quivering, shuddering
my body begs,
my body strains
to escape me

when Evangeline tells you that you’re dead to her,
you feel as if you are chained to a sinking ship,
permanently trapped at the bottom of the ocean,
and drowning has never seemed so sweet.
as she leaves,
you realise that this is the closest blessing you will ever receive
from a god that you don’t believe in anymore.
because if she didn’t walk away,
you would drag her down to hell with you
before you’d even consider letting her go

i bury blue eyes in makeup, simple ghouls floating
in the blush of my cheeks and souls set free
in the dark rings underneath my eyes
and i want to write a poem about the time
you told me that my body is an altar,
a holy place to worship

and i want to roll your name over my teeth,
feel the weight of it in the hollows of my chest,
and feel the harmony of it pulse in my veins
i want to feel your fingers beat out the rhythm
of phantom desire on the small of my back –
like knocking at an unlocked door –
and let you pluck the honey and spice from my lips

i want to tell you that i long to move my hands
across the expanse of burning skin on your chest,
and feel your body breathe, woven into bedsheets,
red-eyed and lost in translation

i want you to kiss me with abandon,
pull me out from the wreckage of my body,
hold me like smoke in your lungs,
and let the marrow thicken in your bones

i want to wake up where you are on sunday,
our legs entangled in burnt sheets, your
hands resting against the curve of my spine,
and watch as you sleep, twitching through dreams

i want to be everything to you, i want to fill your blood,
to hold your kiss deep in my teeth, to be the body
asleep next to you on the other side of midnight

but my bed is empty, a ghost town built on
wasted eyeshadow and smeared lipstick

and how could you have told me that
my body was an altar, a holy place
when i was nothing but a mirage to you,
and your love to me, a myth
nothing more,
nothing less

i wonder if it's strange how i divide up the moments in my life;
what happened before
and after.
before and after my life was irreparably damaged,
torn into
little
tiny
*******
pieces.
i'm not a poet, nor would i describe myself as all too artistic, but as i stand in the shower, wrapping shaky arms around my scarred, damaged, ****** up body, i wonder if an artist would find any beauty in my wreckage.

you have not held anything close to your heart since that night.
you hellhound. you dog of war. you *******. you absolute fool.
when did a knife to your throat become your hail mary?
when did the blade become your prayer?
justice, oh, they talk about justice
and it makes you want to laugh
there is no justice in this world, only
judgement.
this gun in your hand is the reckoning that you have needed for years.
you are his punishment.
(and, for all your sins, is he yours?)

i remember twisting my fingers in each hand, removing the suction between the bones with a popping click
click
click
click
i remember that sound, and how it wasn't nearly as loud as i wanted it to be, i remember the motion not being enough to cover up the trembling of my hands

i remember the moisture in my palms, the blood oozing up between my fingers, the red half-moons embedded in each palm
(crazy, vivid crimson)

i remember the soil and dust and dirt and twigs in my hair,
on my skin
in my clothes
on my body

i remember the cracked weakness every time i opened my mouth, as though i was cradling glass shards in my throat

i remember throwing up over the cracked asphalt road as i ran in the dying light;
my knees buckling beneath me,
my stomach lurching forward,
my lungs burning with each breath

i remember not knowing what was blood or sweat or tears in the dark, feeling the pain pool inside and the thoughts dribble out of the back of my skull,
gnawing to get back in, a dozen angry wasps knocking at sanity's door

and i remember the poison in your bones, the delirium in your eyes, and the cut of your touch
and being consumed alive by your invasion
never to return

he is brazen electricity along your veins and
a sputtering drumline in your mind,
he is tongue and teeth, skin and bone
with his lovely notes scrawled on restaurant napkins and
that half-smile on his lips which makes your knees shake;
and he is perfect, he is lovers’ breath, entrapped
and when your hands are cold, your sheets tangled,
smeared makeup beneath the dark circles of your eyes,
you can nearly taste his words on your tongue

you can't ruin me
there will be blood on my hands
but you will not win

these colors don't run, they say
don't tread on me, they say
heritage not hatred, they say
as the blood of our black american children
runs down the drain
and the necks of
muslim men are snapped in the street
and the backs of
hispanic women are broken in the fields
and how can it be "heritage, not hatred"
when the flag of your heritage
is the epitome of hatred?

never fall in love with a boy who
speaks in lavender soliloquy and
smells like cigarettes and melancholy;
whose kisses leave you in nirvana and
whose flesh lays in some lovely façade;
for he is a poet, a philosopher, and a believer
whose mind will disappear into breathless purgatory
when you're not even looking
and by the time you'll find out
you'll already have lost him somewhere,
between wandering verbosity,
and ashen wordlessness

baby, firewalk with me, be divine with me
because your frequency sends me into overdrive
"touch me, baby; love me, baby; **** me, baby"
i'm electric, sparks embedded under my skin
and every circuit in me is looking to overload
i'm charged, i'm humming,
wreck me
corrupt me, **** with my mind, make me question my sanity
(but don't make a ******* sound,
because i'm in control, baby)
lie with me at dusk on a sunday,
while the room loses light like we lose our clothes
gather me into your lap and let me feel you
your skin's so soft and you taste so ******* sweet
fresh nectar of lovers, thirst quenched upon lips
("can you tell how badly i want you?")
("do you want this as badly as i do?")
on my knees, begging you please
like a sinner asking for salvation
give me everything, you own me
(but i'm in control, baby)
i'm burning, i'm sweltering, i'm suffocating
the desire lines are as plain as day
so give it to me, deliver me from sin
devour me with your eyes, eat me up with your stare
you crave me, don't you?
you need me, don't you?
entangle me into a dreamlike haze
touch me, caress me, break me
never let me go, never get off of me
because i can't cleanse my skin of the places you touched,
(the places you kissed, the places you gripped)
but *******, i wouldn't want to even if i could

sitting cross-legged on her bed,
the early morning sunlight brushes its fingertips over her,
embracing her with the heat of the solstice
and pirouettes of cigarette smoke cast soft blue strokes
across her sunburnt, speckled skin

in the moment, she seems comparable to perfectly sculpted marble -
the statue of a grecian goddess, surely, standing steadfast in her beauty -
and i decide that she was sculpted to be admired, even when she cracks
she was made to exude a sense of grace and delicacy by the hands of a man whose muse was his first unrequited love
and to act as an ****** for every man who ever touches her

she has the eyes of an idealist, eyes that are a shaft of light in a beckoning storm
and her spine is a perfect, fragile curve, every vertebrae crafted with purpose
the tips of her hair pooling like corn silk against the small of her back,
with selfish, hedonistic desire, i long to touch her -
to touch her where all the thoughts that have ever danced through her mind unfurl into perfectly molded swathes of skin,
to touch the body of a goddess whose altar is a dimly lit stage, whose place of worship is down a whiskey bottle

and as she sits statuesque - (oh, yes, statuesque, that's the perfect word) -
i watch her shine brighter than anything ever has

he's a hangman's noose, with long fingers unfurling the tethers of his rope on her throat
shards of shame ***** the back of her eyelids until the tears stream down her cheeks
and he grips beneath her hips, uneven nails biting into
untouched, porcelain flesh with ferocity
drawing blood that would take a week to heal
and a nausea that will never stop rising