you will not go on like this into the night!
i will rip the fascination and souls out of the moonlight; romanticize the way you reach your hand into the dark like the way you philosophize putting your hands onto a lover who cannot fathom between a tragedy and a fairytale.

i draw planets on my wrist
outlined with the ink of a sharpie
my fingers are numb when i put my nails to my teeth; i smile anyway.

we tumble onto couches and beds
i sing you a song about ghosts and dancing
staring up at your ceiling and talking about
tomorrow’s destruction

my lips are tinted red from you biting down on them and my lips are glossed with tangerine ***** (your voice is murmured as you tell me you love me while i play with the lighter. i tell you the truth —i’m suffocating— you tell me to go to sleep)

your hands twist my skin
into hearts and stars
(we call it on the bottle, if it lands on you, i’m
yours. on me? i’m out the door.)

self destruction is the new mouth watering fantasy, we make ourselves bleed just to feel something.

(but baby, i’m so bored with all of this.
red wine spills onto my white tee shirt
and i hate the way it stains
but i still drink with you anyway)

your lips and guitar must be lonely tonight
while you drive to the gas station to buy ***** to drown yourself in, the bruises on your knuckles aching while i lay in bed listening to track number five on the mixtape you made me.

( and we still make ourselves bleed
but this time it’s for fun )

memories do not always soften with time
like these ones i carry on my spine
sometimes, they grow edges, like blades
some memories pierce.
ghosts don’t haunt us; it is us who cannot let them go. (i am telling you now: let go or be dragged)

i stay up nights upon nights with madness filling my ink veins
ugly grief is the price we pay for love
how quick we are to run back to those who hurt us and fight ourselves for their redemption

i saw his soul with my dark eyes
and held it in my bare hands
i loved it, oh, my, i adored it

i still do.

i am alone on my bedroom floor
the carpet burns my calves and the runny nose and eyes
i can feel the moon closer than ever as if it’s waiting for a big kiss
it looked like a crescent keyhole, the other side being a realm of light. being in the dark never felt so unsettling, i forgot how lonely summertime is.

i remember i told you i wanted to live amongst the stars and sleep on the moon
you smiled at me and said
“i would love that too, but won’t you get scared of living in the darkness without seeing the light?”

oh but darling, whom are you to speak? you’ve been surrounded and consumed by darkness all of your life. what’s a little less moonlight going to do to you?

maybe summertime isn’t so lonely.
maybe it’s just me.
maybe it’s always been just me.

filled with rage, laced with shame.
disgust fills my weary bones
this cannot be!

i would die to be myself again
i would die to be myself again, with you.

he held more curiosity
in his electric dark eyes
than most people did
in their entire body

but he came and went so often, my darling, i did not think love was practical for us. it was a dream! more ridiculous and risky than all of his noble adventures combined!

i hid my deepest feelings so well
that i forgot where i places them

dear my lover
go on! i have a new adventure for you!
etch your roads in my molten bones
burrow for those jewels of my love
you’ll find them somewhere near
the arteries in my heart in the oasis of
a desert

that’s where i will wait for you, my love!
under the shade of a palm tree
dipping my bare foot in azure waters
sparkling under the eastern sun

come find me
i’ll be waiting

(i can’t wait for you to tell me
how you killed two birds with one stone)

“better to die standing than to live on your knees.” you remarked

lawyer? no.
doctor? no.
you wanted to be revolutionary.

you wanted to be the dawn
when all the stars in the sky fade
into one.
you were red all over, a deep crimson
with passion and rebellion
i wanted to taste your sweat, your blood,
oh and your crybaby tears.

but all i have is this portrait of you, my love
(but everyone else does too!)

oh, my lover
the man with twinkling eyes
the ink michelangelo blessed him with
the terror bloodbath he bathes in

you did not become a revolutionary
you became the revolutionary

so i will try to stand
but
what if
i’m on my knees
for you?

you spoke often of the
horrible headaches and hunches
of your childhood

singing lessons, fever.
tattoo ink, stuffy nose.
loud voices, blurry vision.

(perhaps because you were
too much for your own body to
handle!)

they called you many things
beauty, devil, and a poet.
but you only wanted thing—
to be a musician of fine arts
to leave your handprint on the world
the ***** and the girls!
oh my! what a world!

angelus dulce! hear my call!
sole lover of my house and heart!
i do regret to inform you all
‘‘twas more than the song of angels
and saints that tore us apart.

(i dare to say
that some days
i still hear him sing)

for a writer to be lovesick
is my only required ethic
in creating a work of heart

so when i skimmed your
saint kissed mouth
and moonlight eyes
indeed my first thoughts were— ah! art!

there it was
cupid’s finely-poised dart!
draw, aim, fire!
o, so sweet, a sinful desire

lovesick! lovesick! lovesick!
i wish to write you a work of art, angelus dulce!

you smiled
you whispered with ferocity
“love is an illusion, chèri.
but illusion is the first of all pleasures”

and at that moment
i dipped my body in your delusional paradise
and praised the saints for giving me the ****** wine to drink

illusion is the first of all pleasures.

“it was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight.”

when electric eyes meet dead ones
the whole world pauses as the dead gets
shocked back to life! she has electricity coursing through her veins, and it gave him a shock of clarity! his eyes were fiery, they held souls of the living and the dead. oh my, he looked like death! she saw no life in him, but she swore she could breathe her air into his maggot lungs. she watched him. she watched him close. before big arms wrapped around a small body, a chin resting upon a head. he told her she was beautiful! oh so magnifique! his touch was imprinted on her for days!

the day they both felt their souls intertwine!

in the land of gods and monsters
i was an angel looking for salvation
and he had the medicine i needed
he made my blood bleed gold rivers
and my heart pump love songs

in the land of gods and monsters
i was an angel looking to be adored
liquor and love
life imitates art
if i get a little prettier, can i be your baby?

in the lands of gods and monsters
i was an angel.

it’s my soul
it isn’t yours anymore.

they were both broken.
but the only difference was
that he took his anger out in music and alcohol
and she took it out in poetry and blades

two broken hearts
and two hurt souls
can’t make a whole

but oh, they tried.
they really did.

now it’s 3am and you’re
calling me up again

going on about the **** you
wish you said

the words slur
and the music in the background is louder

this is when i learn
you only call me when you’re drunk.

“i’ll burn your name into my throat
and i’ll be the fire that’ll catch you”

people told me it’s good to pick up the pieces and put them back together as a whole

but what if i don’t even want to?

my tongue was red from the jolly ranchers
and my lips were glossed with tangerine *****

we stripped down bare
and i could see your smile
when you saw me exposed

polaroid camera
flashes and lipstick stains on
porcelain skin

i cared for you
until i stopped caring for myself

the pictures are buried deep somewhere
in my room but your image is imprinted in my brain

remember when i said if the bottle landed on you, i was yours?

i’m still yours.

you carved constellations into my wrist
and painted my body with the blood
i thought it was beautiful
but i should’ve known that eventually
i would bleed out

you light incense in your house to
keep the bad spirits away, but i still don’t understand how you could let me in. my soul is frigid and inked filled. it is raw and violent. it is terror.

i tried searching up your birthchart when i was high on my sentiment, but ended up vomiting on my bedroom floor and didn’t finish. but i heard sagittarius’ are adventurers, do you want to take a trip to my anatomy? you could play the harp with my ribcage, and play jump rope with my heartstrings. i don’t mind the pain when it comes to you. rip my heart out if you want, make my bones become dust! i love the pain when it comes to you.

you made me forget that i hated myself when we were lying in that cheap hotel bed, laughing with our veins filled with adrenaline. we were drunk off each other’s energy, and i felt complete. mama loves you, and she wants me to keep you around. she doesn’t have to worry though, because i want you around too. for as long as possible. please don’t leave. please don’t leave.

the phoenix is a sign of renewal and i used to wear that bird’s charm around my neck. keeping it on me at all costs. i would hear death knock on my bedroom door, and hear the skeletons in my closet cry for more. i should’ve suffocated them harder.

i ended up losing that necklace after two years of having it. but i don’t think i need it anymore because you replaced it.

so let’s strip the world black and white, mon chèri.
and you can play the ukulele
while i write love verses on your ceiling.

he stood in front of me with his dead eyes, arms wide and a smile so big that it reached ear to ear. holding me into a tight embrace, he whispered how beautiful i was.


but darling has a serpent tongue that i couldn't see before.
his fool's paradise is dripping from his fingers while he plays the harp on my ribcage


parasite boy promised me his soul
and begged me to make him golden.

i told you i wanted to live amongst the stars
and sleep on the moon.
you smiled at me and said

“i would love that too
but won't you get scared of living in the darkness
without seeing the light?”

but oh darling, whom are you to speak?
you've been surrounded and consumed by darkness all of your life
what's a little less moonlight going to do to you?

there's a divine boy who is the personification of a greek tragedy.
he has heaven in his eyes and gold for bones.
he finds himself tangled and drunk off my fermented words
his head thrown back in ecstasy and delusional paradises.
a soul so electric, it gave me a shock of clarity
holding his name on my tongue feels hot and sinful
i couldn't contain it

( but i should've know that every tragedy ends the same
there's a reason they're called tragedies
i mistook the hellfire in his eyes for the heavens
and now i'm melting from my wings )

i used to wonder where i would
put all the overwhelming love that
filled me up to the brim since it was beginning to overflow. i tried shoving my heart into the palms of everyone i met and begged them to take it, but their anatomy was so full that they couldn’t bare to squeeze in mine even if they wanted to.

i wondered why my love was not strong enough to make people stay. giving up my bones so people can wear them as a necklace to show they will always have a part of me even when i didn’t want them to.

my blood is staining the clothes that they burned to get rid of the evidence of me ever being there, and i learned to keep my mouth shut.

i also learned that putting a light
in the house that your soul died in
will not keep it from haunting you.

curse my name with your serpent tongue. step back in disgust and purge all the memories of me like bad liquor—as if my name gave you a bitter taste in your mouth. act like the tastebuds on your tongue never craved any of it.

i’m clinging onto the little sanity i have left because the rest of it is decomposing like a dead corpse in the grave.

you told me i had no backbone, but last time i checked, all my limbs were a phantom.

something about us made me feel so safe.
he could caress my cheek with a knife behind his back, and i would have leaned in closer and tell him to pierce my chest so he could get even closer to my heart.

you have winter in your veins
and i know at point i lived for the glacial temperatures.

i lived for the ice covering my bones
and you filling my body up to the brim with your filthy mistakes and careless words. how much do i have to pay you to hear you say those three little words again?

i keep replaying the vhs tape to our movie even though i always know how it ends.
i know how it ends, yet i watch it like a deer watches the headlights because i long for the familiarity that was once us, even though it makes me want to purge my guts out until my throat is strained and scratched.

i got drunk off your finger-crossed promises that the light at the end of the tunnel was right ahead and we needed to keep our head up. i sipped from your cup of honeyed words as if your delusional paradise could quench my thirst.

i’m slowly breaking down and distinguishing the pronunciations of safety and comfort, and they no longer sound like your name. they don’t sound like your name at all.

all you ever did was visit. you never stayed. my heart and ribcage was a home to you inconsistently inhabited whenever you feel alone and weak. but when the time came to renew the lease, you left me to sit fully furnished with your bad intentions; all the weight of your baggage that you were tired of carrying on your back was unloaded onto me. i reached my full capacity a long time ago, but you were blind to see that i was overflowing.

i would rip my lungs out if it meant it would quiet my screams that cry for you

i bite my tongue because i know my words never meant anything to you.

when i walked away from you, i left behind a universe filled ecstasy and unwanted come downs.

and i always tried to make you sure you were safe and had something to hold onto so you wouldn’t go flying away

but i guess you loved being high more than the firm grounding i put you on time and time again.

we found comfort in the chaos
but i’m no longer your lovebird
i’m ready to be set free from my cage for good.

you pull the trigger just for fun
forgetting i’m a loaded gun.

if i didn’t worship you like i worshipped the moon, maybe we would’ve turned out just fine. but here i am, weeping and being bathed with the moonlight’s kiss as i beg for your return but all i feel is your presence lingering in the atmosphere while your touch is imprinted on my bones and became another layer of skin.

i.

i ripped a page of my mixtape heart and watched the lyrics of a sad love song burn in a fourth degree. i’m so sorry, honey. you are the only memento i have of him; the only remembrance i have left.

but as i hold on to your tragic melody that rings in my ear drums, the more i feel the sting of love decaying like ashes from a cigarette that die with the wind

even now, thoughts of him fade in and out of my foggy brain, flickering like the lights in a horror movie. his smile could set the whole town ablaze, and his eyes, oh his eyes held a hellfire.

he buried himself alive in my head along with yesterday’s bones and yet, when i close my eyes, i am still haunted by his eulogy like a phantom of the sun. and i suppose the only song i will ever sing is his name, until his memory fades away and vanishes like my last breath on my deathbed

ii.

i wrote these sunburned verses, dripping wet with asteroid tears in each paragraph. my pen resembled a syringe used to inject these words into the water stained page while preparing a cocktail drink of rubbing alcohol and mountain dew before swallowing it all in one gulp. you were utter complete poison. threatening to ****** my sanity with a switchblade called your kiss on my skin. and perhaps one day, my heart will learn to fall in and out of love without feeling an overwhelming amount of guilt.

you really are the embodiment of hades in another lifetime. your hands are filthy and covered with the screams of the dark entities that you held inside that chest cavity of yours.
you hold so much more than i could ever know.

my hands are shaking and they are matching the tempo of your vantablack heart.

iii.

it seems i can’t write a single thing that wasn’t about you. you had murdered my words and made the thought of you bleed through my brain with your aftertaste.

love had become a distant memory where you ethereal face began haunting my dreams and my whispers were no longer whispers, they were blood curdling screams of agony.

your words breathed like they had a life after you stole mine, and since you did, i’ve been holding onto what’s left of my anatomy and die slowly.

iv.

you killed me with your sharp as a blade
cyanide tongue as i overdosed on my yesterday’s delusions while i closed my eyes
and sunk deeper into the abyss called nirvana.

he was always a moment too big for me, everyone knew that. he was magnetic and electric, and my heart and entire being couldn't contain such a man as magnificent as him.

he was always torn with choosing me and his dreams, but i guess he finally had enough and decided to burn the bridge that connected us to each other.

sometimes i still find the ashes of the bridge's remains on my shoes and clothes from when i tried to get to him. i'm just speaking in metaphors, but no matter how many of them i use, they will never show you how miserable i truly am.

remington leith is and will always
be the bittersweet death of me.

you’re such a melancholic enigma.
heart shaped bruises on your neck and lipstick stains on your porcelain skin

there’s no beauty running through those filthy veins, you are not crystalline.

you have terror in your words as they hold me in a tight embrace. i never felt so cold, yet so warm in someone’s grip. i could get frostbite from your hands, and a heatstroke from your lips.

your tongue is sharp as a blade
you had enough time to practice
and now you’re slicing my chest open
so you can rip my heart out.

i was too naive to notice the skeletons buried underneath the clothes in your closet and the blood staining your hands

i found all the bones and remains of your victims and i felt the acid in my stomach knowing i was next

i could hear your filthy words that were cursed with dishonesty but they sounded so sincere

they say that it takes trust, communication, and love to make a relationship

so i guess we weren’t anything to begin with.

you are a holocaust

you are terror

but you are so divine in ways that i cannot bare to speak

you are my salvation

but you have a car crash in your chest cavity
and hellfire within your irises.

i’m screaming ruination as your plump pink lips press against my stomach and down to my bare hips

you’re telling me the only thing i need to scream is your name, as i bite down on your shoulder to gain some friction

my eyes roll back as i arch my back
getting my body ruined by a dying god was never on my bucket list.

she pulls out her marlboro pack cigarettes and takes the slender cancer stick out and puts it between her lips

sparking the lighter, she throws her head back and wonders what all went wrong with her and her hades.

the bitter nicotine was filling up the emptiness he left inside of her hollow chest when he ripped out her heart and crushed it into a liquid crimson mess

she couldn’t pinpoint where things went wrong, but she knew things went downhill a long time ago. if she focuses, she can still
hear the rolling of his suitcase when he left her in that **** motel at 4am.

4am. it’s always 4am. and now she’s trying to **** some air into her heaving lungs when the clock hits 4’o’clock because all she sees is his silhouette.

you painted constellations on my body with my own blood and i thought it was a masterpiece. i let you take every part of me that made my body a whole, and i let you break them down into tiny pieces before you crushed them into dust.

i’m not trying to romanticize us or our pain, but when your hand wraps around my throat, i swear i can see the galaxy when the darkness consumes my blurry vision

i still moan your name in my sleep and fist fight the demons that you sent my way a year ago just so you can get back at me

how does it feel to ******* blood on your tongue? you’re trailing wet kisses on my bare hips as if you’re mapping the devil’s lands

and i think i’d let you break me again if you asked politely.

my heart is thumping against my ribcage
i feel the pulsing in my veins and the flickering between my eyes has me buzzing like a bee

my hands are cold
if they touch you
you’ll just freeze
and don’t even think about getting near my soul
you’ll just get frostbite

even though i’m warm flesh and blood
i don’t agree with the whole idea of love
and how we need it to survive
love has always been a kick to the gut
and i’m coughing up metallic

i’m begging you not to go
but shoving you out the door as i do so
you don’t know whether you should stay or leave
so you decide to take the easier route in the decision making
and you just leave

because you don’t want to deal with the anger i have towards myself and the resentment
so you leave
and i’m left with a hole in my heart

it’s faintly beating
but it’s still there

so i’ll let my therapist take a seat and get her notepad and i’ll lie about how i’m fine and you’ll lie about how you didn’t see the warning signs.

i really thought you were the one for me. i truly and utterly believed that you were my soulmate and we were going to be happy. i gave you everything i could offer and you took it like a greedy man and gave me nothing in return and left me with nothing. how selfish can someone be? i never knew how bad of a person you were until i saw your true colors. how are those other girls tasting now that you’re single and don’t have a girl waiting for you back at home? how are the liquor bottles tasting too? still getting drunk off something that’s not my words? you’re pathetic. you’re broken. and i cannot fix you. i wish you would see how much you’re hurting me. stop texting me please. i want to move on, and i think you should too.

it’s crazy how two years ago, we were calling every night just to see if we could see each other because we genuinely missed each other’s presence.

now we only call because we’re alone and filled with lust.

our stomachs are filled with words that we are too afraid to tell each other
and i’ve pretended to go mad so i could tell you about the things lingering in my brain because apparently in the midst of chaos, you’re allowed to spare some honesty.

and i really hate to see you this way
depression and anger oozing from every pore while you rub neosporin on your self inflicted scars

you’re such a wreck, and people make sure you know that.

but i wonder why you never tell them that i was behind the steering wheel.

lately i’ve been spending my days sitting in the dark wondering if i was the one who pulled you under the tides, or if i was the lifeguard who brought you back to shore

i promised myself i wouldn’t turn you into another poem
but it seems lately that’s all i’ve been doing

i can’t help it.
you’re my muse.

you reminded me that even in our darkest times, there will always be light. and we shouldn’t fear what lurks behind the shadows

and maybe i should stop searching for you in every man i meet

and maybe you should stop searching for girls who resemble me in some way

whatever we choose to do with our lives

i will always love you the same.

we’re fighting again.

and i don’t know if the chill in my bones was from it being cold, or if it was from you screaming you hated me before the line went dead.

i tried telling you something that you wanted to hear, but it seemed as if the words that were coming out of my mouth was gasoline fueling the fire within you

you’re always angry
and i’m always sorry

the silence has never been so loud
and my anxiety has never been this overbearing

and baby, i don’t know where our love is hiding
but i’ll let you know when i find it.

we loved each other so violently and relentlessly
we danced with each other’s demons
and kissed each other’s scars

we were so utterly consumed by each other
that we both forgot we were in hell.

i stopped my habit of stealing flowers from graveyards when i found out you were giving them to someone else.

i know you’re dead inside
but
you make me feel alive.

i don't need anyone
i like to tell myself i don't because
if i'm being honest with you
(usually i'm not)
i rely on people more than i should.

your golden hair strands are covering your
face as your chain dangles off your neck
it makes me want to give the world to you
and give you this devotion and adoration
i have that's suffocating me.

do you hear my heart thumping rapidly
in my ribcage?
will you still kiss me if my lips tasted like
asphalt and red wine?
my last lover was a dying god and it was fitting
but you're the reincarnation of apollo and you need
more of a ravishing taste.

i never been touched by a god
but i had my body ruined by a dying one
will you touch me and make me whole again?

please talk to me!
i don't like being alone
i hate being alone
i don't like it
i need you.

loverboy.

“please kiss me until i can’t breathe!”
i beg
“show me the afterlife
show me the forbidden fruits that eve tasted
show me the eagerness and the aching pain that you feel in your chest
hold me for eternity throughout this lifetime
we can forget about heartbeats
because they’re so painful to feel
we’re just taking breaths to stay
we can count stars instead
you can taste the stardust on my tongue if you’d like
we can go to mars and slow dance until our feet are nothing but ash
can we be in love until there’s nothing left?
let’s lose everything there is to have!”
i roared
“please kiss me until there’s only an us.”

you feel too little
and i feel too much.

i still have the date of the day we met
and the date of when i told you i loved you imprinted in my mind

i still feel your lips on my body
and i still hear you telling me that
we’ll go through life together

and darling, i’m sorry i made things end too soon. and i’m sorry that i lied when i said i wouldn’t hurt you.

apologies can’t fix our love
but it can fix our closure

and i may be holding onto false hope
but you were clinging onto it

i’m not everything you wanted me to be
and i won’t pray for sanity, so baby, here’s a toast.

some things are better left alone.

i hope you never find my poetry
because then you’ll realize why i left
you.

darling, i know i claimed that i moved on
but you gratified on the walls in my mind
like it was the fourth of july

you said you trusted me
and said you’d catch me if i fell

and i know i never said i’d catch you
but darling, i’d hold the pain of your world
on my back so i could see you smile

i know you wouldn’t believe me and half
the things i say if you were to read these right now

but darling, my love for you is still as strong
and don’t tell me you moved on
because i don’t wanna know.

i have a throbbing aching heart in my ribcage that’s being accompanied by heaving lungs that are craving fresh air

i don’t know how many times i’ve lost my mind in the past hour, but i know i’d lose my head if it wasn’t attached to my shoulders.

your smile is making my knees weak
and it’s making aphrodite weep
it’s a beautiful reflection for firework eyes  

these are the haunted hearts we melt over
we’re melting on your cold tile floor
and i apologize for the mess

i’d wear your bones as a necklace
because i reek like death
and have your blood on my satin dress

but darling, don’t you know i’d die for you?

you have always burned bright, my darling angel, what is it that you’re hiding in that flesh and bone of yours? what is it that you’re fearing?

you always told me that you were so unloveable, but darling angel, i loved you until my bones began to ache and my beating heart could no longer fathom another person.

my hands playing with the fingers on yours seemed like a perfect masterpiece as we laid there on the trampoline in the middle of the night, talking about the world we never understood

you thanked the universe at night for it being me to you. i thanked the universe for finally being on my side.

but sometimes life can do terrible things
and now i’m crying to the thought of heartbreak while you said i ruined poetry for you

but being with you was euphoria
losing you was the unwanted comedown.

you make me so aware of how unfair i am to myself by loving you, it pains me to not be able to just rip you from my chest, to take you and pin you to my refrigerator just like all of the rest, a mere memory of what i felt for you instead of having you invade my body with thoughts and a touch that never breaks the surface because you’re more than two worlds away and it makes me feel pathetic.

god, you make feel like i can have the world at my finger tips because it wrapped so easily around yours. you drive me absolutely mad, but at the same time, you’re what keeps me sane. don’t ask me how that works, it just does, and only you can make me feel this way. i’m so lonely, and i lost almost half the time, the thought of you grounds me and nails my feet to the ground but tell me, how can i love you even when you’re not around?

you’re the boy of my ******* dreams, sweet and oozing with charm, ****, just take me now why don’t you? you don’t know how much i’d give to have an ounce of your love. you don’t look my way, most of the time it’s in my head if you do. i like the idea of being with you, but maybe it’s just the thought of not being so alone. i’m so sick of being ******* lonely, it’s devastating. it always seems to creep up when i’m in bed, it’s like me dipping my toe in the ocean before being utterly consumed by the tides

i hope you hear the angel’s song and i hope it helps you sleep at night because you being happy is what keeps me at ease.