i’ll never be sober from you.

intoxicated by your fermented words, i know i’ll always drink up your breath as if it is an antidote waiting to be crushed into my lungs.

sometimes i wonder if my trauma is still after me. i sit in my bed and try not to count each chipped paint mark on my wall by two’s and how many knots in my stomach that tightened in the last hour, i wonder if my trauma is still alive even after all of those years ago

i fall like the autumn leaves, the same ones that crunched under my shoes when i was thirteen, what do you do when the music finally stops?

you could start it over and replay the same record or you could put in a new one, they say old habits die hard but mine keep showing up at my doorstep like old family coming home for the holidays, except they overstay more of their welcome and never like to be put to bed.

maybe the punch line is that i don’t really know when to stop either, that i don’t like the feeling of my heart not being in my own mouth. every time i get an option to put in a new record, i put the old one back in, even if it’s damaged and has too many faults.

i wonder if my trauma likes to be held, because when i was fourteen, i refused to be touched at all.

and i can’t help but wonder if my trauma ages along with me, because sometimes i still see the same little kid with guns for hands staring right back at me wondering who the hell i am.

i like to think that soon i’ll grow tired of that record and put in a new one, let it play out and have myself enjoy new music for the first time again, and then when it dies, i can give it a proper burial and move on to a bigger label

and maybe i’m capable of doing so right now,

but my trauma likes to sit at the edge of my bed & play that same **** record as a theme song of my wake.

“will you just hold me?… please?”

you hiccuped due to the amount of heaviness you poured out that night, sniffling and begging for me to open my arms to invite you in for a sense of comfort i knew you craved but were always too prideful to ask for. here you were wanting to be cradled like a child, and i answered the call. my arms felt like they were only pushing your broken parts together again for just a moment as you dismantled under my touch — falling limp and cold, face buried with soft whimpers, you were a broken child in a grown man’s body.

you clutched my shirt tightly, knuckled into your fist until they had turned white — you begged for me not to leave you like your dad did. if your own father saw you as unworthy and left, that meant anyone could, right?

you lifted your head to grab my face between your cold shaky palms and pressed your salty tear stained lips onto mine with a delicacy i haven’t felt from you since—i hold onto this memory too much than i probably should.

i hold onto it because i know this was the real you. the real person behind the facade you carried with you for years since LA.

i knew you that night
until the next day i didn’t.

and i had been feeling more hopeless than i had ever felt romantic with you but i constantly tried to convince myself that it was okay because hey, at least i felt something, right?

I. YOU CAN FEEL IT IN THE ATMOSPHERE, TEARS OF MY PSYCHE FOR YOUR SOL

II. HANDS RISE AS IF IN WORSHIP, LA LUNE SLIDES ON MY TONGUE & DOWN MY THROAT LIKE A TROPICAL JUICE

III. YOU EMBRACE THE STARS, I EMBRACE THE CLOUDS

IV. WE SING AN OFF-KEY MELODY FOR THE MORNING THAT RISES

V. WE SING AN OFF-KEY MELODY FOR THE MORNING THAT WILL NEVER COME

in your arms, i find warmth.
i find 90s grunge band posters and fairy lights entangled on the walls with the scent of burning incense that has been lingering in the air around my nose for quite some time—a sensation of bliss between my cupids bow & chin when the sun touches my swollen lips with her soft & delicate ones—how does one tell the angel of the clouds to bring a storm down?

i find a remedy in our tomorrows
and a home in our forevers.

maybe I’m just out of metaphors.
or maybe you’re just too good for them.

i tried listing the ways i could describe our slow motion romancing, but my tongue is always left with a dry taste on the surface. i tried naming artists that brought me to my knees but they could never compare to how you bring me to them today. no creative suites are worthy to be grazed metaphorically with your name in between the syllables.

maybe i’m trying too hard
or maybe i’m not trying enough.

the glass is half-empty and my phone has been lighting up with missed calls from my muse, where have you been? where did you go? will you come back? i tried ringing my creativity but she left me with dial tones.

i can’t sit here and say i never thought about running away from you. i run away from anyone that gets close enough to brush against my rib cage towards my heart, i never liked the way their hands felt. iced and reeking with their desperation. maybe I’m just too tired of the same old thing, maybe i’m just really stuck on you.

maybe, the metaphors weren’t on the page
but in our yearnings for each other to turn around and taste the eclipse.