We stood in a room
With pale, rose colored walls
The veneer flaking like dead skin
The light flickering
It was the heart
The core inside of this machine
Pulsing, throbbing, *******
I stood before the most beautiful woman
She used to be much more to me
But she was an object in this room
Subjective to my emotion; to my imagination
A pawn to be pushed and shoved
She wore a decrepit ballerina’s garb
And the dainty shoes of the dancer were worn and discolored
She looked like a zombie of herself
Her face was whitened with experience: trauma
I did not love her anymore
I could not love her again
Her hair was all that remained the same as when I knew her
Long and calm; her hair seemed to be carried by the winds when she moved
I had always said I wanted to see her dance
Against all odds and broken plans to be together
We met finally
In this run down studio apartment she worked herself to the bone to keep
She had a friend install a mirror across an entire wall of the place
So she could watch herself for mistakes
She should’ve had a mirror up her whole life
As to check for flaws
There was no music to play
So she asked me to sing, so she could dance for me
I joked to her once that when I finally saw her dance it would be on Broadway
Well this is as close to Broadway as either of us will ever get
As she moved and swayed and spun
I thought about when we first met
She was a girl still, I was a boy then
But love cuts like a razor’s edge
Lopping off all the best parts
Until there’s only steel left in our hearts
I couldn’t help but fantasize as she leapt and poised like tendrils of smoke
I sung an old song, one I learned when my heart broke
She recognized it
But didn’t say a thing
There was consequence for every action
And a price to pay for every prayer
I prayed she’d ask me to stay the night when she was through
I begged some unnatural force to give her to me
To let me have her in every way
All to myself
I stopped singing and a choke of feelings swelled up in my neck and belly
I wish she’d come up to me and cut them loose
With her sharp, sensual lips
Even though her clothes were sweaty
I admired the work she put in for her dream
Even though I’d been more successful with less
I suppose I’m just prettier than she
No matter how silly that seems
She smiled and hugged me
She felt soft against my tired body; a form chipped away at by the day to day
She was warm and I was cold
I missed her all these years
I needed her all this time
The clot stuffed in my throat popped
And we finally talked
I told her how the rain was in Washington
And she told me about the morning sea fog that slinked around San Francisco
I mentioned I still hadn’t fallen in love
She blushed and said she’d had no luck
I asked her if she wanted to ****
No
No
No
Don’t be silly she laughed
Flicking my ear, as a tease to the fox
She turned away from me and did a pirouette to the cabinet
Pulling out two glasses and a bottle of cheap wine
Her gesture said stay
I couldn’t go if I wanted to anyways
So we indulged in the nostalgia from when we were kids
When I was a poet
And she was misunderstood
When she hurt my feelings
And I was no good
She laughed until tears streamed down her face
Breaking down she asked me
If I meant it when I said I’d love her forever
And I asked her to marry me
She smiled and kissed me
Then she pulled away fast
Time for bed
You can sleep on the floor- it’s more comfortable than the couch
I heard her say
I never thought it would end this way
To be truthful though
I don’t think that this is the end
The end hurts
But this felt nice, a sordid, moldy, stagnant pleasure
Light as a feather on my chest
Sharp as a sword jutting from your breast
This was love
I was convinced
It was either love
Or the urge to feed
To plunge myself into her
And let the sorrow breed
To learn the difference between want and need
In the morning she woke me up with coffee
Coffee and ****
We drank
We smoked
She seemed distant
So I took my prodding words and poked
Looking for a ****** expression that signified she was provoked
I wanted to see some life in those grey eyes of hers
Eyes once blue
Long ago, before the seven winds kissed the matching seas
And all the hurricanes settled into a breeze
I told her that she was a tease
Wearing nothing but a t-shirt that came down to her knees
I asked her if I could touch her please
I wanted her so bad
It was that sensation you feel when something is just an inch out of reach
Or when you’re pulling off of your skin a fat leech
She scrunched her nose playfully
But when she made that face I knew it meant to stop asking
I was the asker though
A man with a thousand questions
Doomed to never know
Anxious and eager and yearning
It had been years since I had seen her
Years since I felt the blood in my veins turn hot
My heart was beating like the drums that lead William Wallace to victory
I was hungry
I was toiling in the reawakened parts of myself
Seeing her was like reaching nirvana
But I was never one for meditating
Too impatient
Too many things titillating
She felt like a stranger that I knew so well
Every word she spoke was a mile from hell
But I liked her hot
And I liked her cold
I said I wanted to spend the night again
But this time in her bed
She rolled her eyes and poured me more coffee
Her cheeks turned pink
What was right in her mind told me no
But the look in her eyes said “take me”
I would
I would
I would darling, baby
Biting my bottom lip for a few seconds of hesitation
I brought my face to hers and kissed her softly
She leaned into it hard and I put my hands on her hips
I fell backward on the couch we lounged on
Pulling her onto me
The tremble in my hands
Said I had no idea what I was doing
But the look in my eye
The sparkle of being with her finally
Felt like water overfilling a well
I felt like I belonged finally
I belonged with her; my home was where she was
Even this decaying San Franciscan studio apartment felt like heaven
I never thought I would ever be allowed to feel this way
Like there was a place with no boundaries
When we finished the world outside of us two in those moments
Was a quagmire
My lust, desire
It died at long last
Closure finally crept into my life
I was positive we weren’t in love
But I asked again for her to be my wife
I said I didn’t have a ring but I’d buy her one
****, I’d buy her anything
I told her she didn’t have to come live with me
I’d sell my things and come be with her
She just smiled
I knew she thought that idea was nice
But she digressed that what I felt was a temporary thing
And I’d change my mind
Once I left this place
I did change my mind
When I left and had to put my life into perspective
I decided to never come back
Though my mind changed
My heart didn’t move on
It belonged to her and she was long gone
It made me wonder if there really is a place
For lonely people like me
Or maybe everything is just fleeting and temporary
Life and love
****, they’re scary.

You’d be a *****
If getting ****** was the same as breaking hearts
You’d be a martyr
If killing others was the sacrifice
You’d be beautiful
If showing no emotion was pretty
You’d be adorable
If watching me slowly die made you a cutie pie

I just want to see you naked
Just once before I decide
Just once before we’re allowed
I just want to kiss you a lot
All over you; tongue and neck-
Kiss you from your lips and to your breast
This is your heartbeat though, up against my chest
This is the best
The best

You showed me your smile, how sharp that were the teeth inside
You told me about how you’d decide
How you think about us sometimes
When we’re not allowed
Not to touch or kiss or whatever
Not to fall in love, just to bounce back and forth in static forever
These are my heart strings though and you’re pulling them like a lever
This is the worst
The worst

I just want to know you better
Everything you are and everything you think
Just know it all before we shrink; disappear from the waking world
So allow me this once to take you
Tell you that I love you to your face, eyes composed in loving blue
Lips and from them the words I’ve always wished you’d say too
This is our friction
This is amazing
A-m-a-z-ing

I know I said we were done speaking
I have a tumor
It’s killing me in a funny way
Slowly and without any pain
So I decided I’d like to die in your arms
If you’d forgive me for a week
Just savor me though I’m bleak
Oh spin me a tale
As I lay frail, battling sleep

I know I promised that the end was the end
The surgery to remove it would **** me
So swift is life though it seems one thousand years long
If you wait to make your mind up
I will be gone
So decide to hold my head
Stay at the side of my bed
Until I’m dead

I know I went mad, I was cruel
But you never left me behind; we were ironclad
It was all me
I grew cold as ice and sharp as steel
Darkness was king and I bent and kneeled
You sat in the unfathomed corners of your mind
Reeling in all the ceaseless mechanisms you could find
That makes me tick
That made me sick

I know I swore to you my whole world
As is evident in my current state: worlds end, such is fate
Once by rain
Once by quake
Once by wind
And finally by fire
My world melted in the heat of my own ire
I called you a ***** and you called me a liar
But now you know I always tell the truth
Even though I never knew what was true
Until I spoke about you

I don’t believe in decaying
It’s not that I’m saying I’m not afraid of death
Cause’ if I’m fearless but for one thing
It’s dying
So keep me alive
Keep my blood hot, scald you to the touch
Find the ways to make me tick and the ones to make me not
Explore the secrets and wounds that tangle me up and keep me distant from you
Those hallowed things that keep me shy and quiet
Infiltrate my secret side, penetrate what I’ve kept, and uncover how I’ve been disguised
I may be selfish for not believing in life
I may be greedy for wanting you all to myself
But if you tell me how to kiss you
I’d like to kiss you
Until your blood is hot
And it scalds me to the touch
But you can burn me all night until the morning time
I don’t mind

There is something wrong with me
When I see someone beautiful I can’t stop wanting them

Until my greed destroys what made them beautiful
Until the desire in my heart poisons them

The worst though is that I know
I know that I cause only harm

But I can’t sate my hunger
For beautiful things

The color blue in your stare struck me wickedly
This was you?  The same girl I knew?  
This was you vicious  
This is you piceous and grim staring into me  

My beard was too long and it scratched my face
I needed to shave and that’s all I could think about
I should’ve thought about what I’d done wrong
But there was distractions orbiting my heart round and round its gravity

You are so pretty when you’re angry with me
I don’t know if anyone can ever keep me from loving that

While I was spinning and dancing along happy as can be on my trapeze
I never took the time to realize that my circus tent was a bird cage
That’s the danger though of dreaming in a waking age  

Through all the forests and mazes spun listless in your mind I wandered and wanted  
I was happy locked up in your head,
I’m happy when we talk for days about nothing.  

I don’t like it when we don’t speak though
I don’t like to feel alone

I like to feel as if I’m orbiting you, round and round, sending sprites of affection
Beyond your detection
Just your satellite and that’s all I need

To speak I am with shakes and trembles
Like I’m bound with vines and brambles
She does like my face at least
That’s okay, at last now I know the truth
It’s just my personality
Extrovert the intrusion
Introvert the exclusion
I just tuck away my fears
Waiting for the end of shyness
I’m just a slice a way
Just an incision I’m afraid
The end of sunlight and gray
I end the mumbling today
I want to say what I mean: what’s on my mind, what makes me free
The last of my bastion that remains are my dreams
So I’ll sleep
I’ll sleep it all away
Lucid the imagination
The blood on the surface
Condemned to coagulation
The wound beneath heals and scars
The sound of mumbling is crashing cars
And choking throats
On words that seem to strike the wrong notes
To speak I am on the worst of terms
Like drowned in a shallow grave of nerves
****** to be without her
But she says we’ll together tumble
Once I learn how not to mumble

Tell me please
Will you be my reckoning?
I am made of feathers and leafs
You are wind
I am sticks and stones
You are the sea
I’m just curious as to how you plan to **** me
You will
Eventually
The things I like are destructive by nature
It’s not your fault; I sought you out
I came to the conclusion that I like how it feels to be ruined
Touch me please
Be the instrument of my self-destruction
I wouldn’t mind at all
Make me into the night sky
I want to be beautiful before I die
******* beautiful
I’m not asking to be ‘fixed’
I wasn’t born broken
No one is
The man you see came this way
Bruises, internal bleeding and battle-scars
Read my skin like braille
If you honestly want to know
The darkest fathoms of me
I’ll tell you them
But you have to give me something
No secret is free
Tempt me please
Make me wait
And want to linger on my thoughts of you
Like a wolf at the tail of its prey
Somehow you’re made all the sweeter to me
The longer I stay at this distance
Feel free to abuse your grip on my throat
Kiss these scratches on paper, letters to you that I wrote