how cliché

a drunk getting into bar fights
at 3am
(he cant punch what’s
really bothering him)
in the well-lit street full
of people trying to find comfort
underneath the moonlight’s weeping tears.

two years later,
do traces of me still
hide in the pages of your worn-out
song book, the same way i scatter pieces
of you in the crossed-out lines of my poetry?

worn out faux leather jackets for lean shoulders; tattoos with meaning; tattoos with none; smirking lips glisten whiskey and salt; slender diesel-smudged hands wrapped on a bottle, waist, throat.

wispy smoke veiled sick brown eyes
nicotine, gunpowder, or maybe just you
your fiery breath
in the haunting brisk of autumn

pain and pleasure in semi-darkness
behind locked doors
floral perfume oil with the rotting nostalgia stench and bitter tobacco melting through
one match made in heaven! set the world on fire!

mess in a mess; flesh and soil
my funeral congregation of saint skies
you mumble an urban prayer, throw a gardenia
in the dirt, flicker of the flame. let it burn!

ashes, ashes, she shall fall down.

when the bullet burned my heart
did your senses sizzle with satisfaction?
it won’t be the first time
my body gave you pleasure

and i’m sure it won’t be the last time
when pain excites you

your vampire teeth
likes biting on what’s not yours
so you afford a fleeting ******
between a descendant tableaux
and your rosy cheeky maiden who you
****** the life out of

and when you’re done
you rest your head on my shoulder.

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 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.

the purple lights fall perfectly on your ****** features as your eyes are closed, you're living in the moment whilst capturing my heart in a jar without even getting close to me, but i definitely feel your hands gripping at my chest and ripping it out.

and starboy, i promise i'm sober. but i could easily get drunk on those liquor lips, let me have a taste.

you're shuffling through girls like songs on your playlist, and i'm hoping i'm the song you stay listening to and don't get tired of. i'm shuffling through emotions like a deck of cards, and i have my poker face on.

but ****, i was never good at placing bets.

i'll curl my eyelashes and put a coat of mascara, gloss my lips with cherry wine, and blush my cheeks with fresh raspberries.

i bet you'd like that, starboy. i heard the sun is a star, and you're the sun of my life. you're the sun, starboy! my bright beaming sun. and i'll risk anything to get burned.

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.

they told me i'd be signing the DNR papers
if i fell in love with you
and i remember putting down my signature

i always end up being amused when people compare themselves to the darkest night and the blinding white like the marble tabletops and the ******* you snort.

i’m more of a mediocre mustard yellow and royal blue, maroon and grey. i can’t live life in extremes even if i ******* tried. i’ve learned that.

so i brew me up some hot nostalgia and let it sink into my pores, and let it create tension in my heartstrings but just not strong enough to rip them apart. it’s almost ****** up if i say it like that. i’m in a constant state of being ripped apart but not quite, i’m always half way there. i’m not worth anything to the point where the people who want to break me, can’t even do it fully.

i’m an almost human, an almost adult, almost desirable, and almost dead.
i’m drowning in the almosts, and it’s snuffing out my spark. it’s almost pathetic. i’m just fixating on everyone that neglected me.

and i’m rambling, i like rambling
i also like christian anthony
but i can’t do him.
at this point
how do you free yourself from the almosts?
or do you let them soak through your decaying skin? tell me.

red laced button up shirts and long shoulder length golden honey hair
he was carefully handcrafted, and i knew god took his time on this sunkissed angel. i just hope he had me in mind when he made the sun angel’s soulmate.

sun baby can play the harp with my ribcage and it’ll still sound heavenly because anything he touches will never turn to stone; they’ll simply be crystalline.

i wish to be as enchanting as my sun angel, but he doesn’t have any beauty to spare, he’s very greedy. he likes to absorb all the light from the sun, and keep it for himself. baby, i may like the dark but i like you even more.

i feel like i have summer’s guilt chilling my bones, and i can see him in the rear view mirror with his brightly beaming aura

so hold your breath, we’ll be just fine.

tell me, my love, how did you rip off the warning labels on your body so i could be easily fooled? tell me! tell me!
you're exhaling chemicals and i'm inhaling them
the nicotine that fills your lungs is making them feel like they're going to explode, and you hold onto my shoulder for comfort

you claim you're better on your own
but i slept with you in your car because you were fist fighting demons on highway 90

so, baby boy, tell me how you ripped off those tags that were supposed to warn me about you? tell me how you got your friends to be quiet! tell me! tell me!

you're face to face
with death
and i'm about to shake his hand.

your lips touch my ear / breath on my skin / making mine hitch /
goosebumps on my body / you whisper love prose / paint me in golden strokes / i will come undone for you / your name is stuck and clogged in my throat / i’m not choking  on you / i’m choking on us / we’re fiery beacons of light / i will come undone for you / i feel fireworks exploding in the pit of my stomach / i wish i could stay here / stay with you forever /
isn’t that part of our purpose? / stay with me / stay with me in the morning light.

i look at him and it’s so simple.
i love beautiful things and like to romanticize
fingers pressed to sienna skin that’s stained with vermilion. i sigh. unfolding in the corners of his eyes. “stop!” i’m trying to say. “this is too much!” i feel my whispers release into the ears of silent walls, they echo right down to his core and make him shiver. “i mean it!” i scream before the sudden pause. i cant help but weep.

it’s such a shame
that we think we’re bigger
than our bodies.

there was salvation in his smile.
an undeniable warm feeling
that would trickle in your crimson veins
like cold tears on radiant burning cheeks.

he looked like one of those crafty handcrafted
statues in those expensive-looking art museums. you can’t help but admire him and his scenery. god could return on earth in a
mortal body, but all i will see is my apollo.

golden honey hair and fresh water hazel eyes— eyes that could bring you to your knees in one simple glare

sun kissed bronze skin with rose and sword tattoos, my oh my, he’s blessed with michelangelo’s paintbrush! he’s a painting on god’s favorite art wall!

all i see is him.
all i see is art.

meet me anywhere under the sun!
i’ll be waiting for you in a white sundress.
i’ve been waiting for you to come home.
we can share a strawberry and drink sweet honey iced tea in bottles
we could talk about how you captured the sun in your bare hands and swallowed it whole!
are you waiting for me? are you waiting for me, my love? because i’m waiting for you. it's all i do.

he is the scrape of knees and knives
the clawing of fingernails on marble columned spines with the bones breaking down into dust

he is the scaring of a fresh wound that i inflict on myself so i can feel something and he is the stinging tears i cry, holding cyanide underneath a serpentine tongue.

he is the rawness in my chest and throat
from screaming for him to leave me be

but he brings me love
and dilutes my blood
with salt water

i met the love of my life in a dream.
we ate fresh baked bread on a floral bridge
that was over a running azure lake that had all kinds of water creatures below the surface, and i told him he was the one for me. “aime-moi” i said before we were in front of the eiffel tower. he kissed me with his pineapple juice lips and i got drunk off the feeling. his words were almost as enchanting as the scenery and the moment, i told him “estoy enamorado de ti!” and that’s when he disappeared in a cloud of peach hue smoke.

so please, loverboy
if you’re reading
let’s go back

you
love
setting
things
on
fire
when
there
is
nothing
to
break


so
you
set
yourself
ablazed
to
forget
me
in
the
morning.

the neighbourhood is playing in the background and you’re downing a bottle of liquor while i sit on the cold wooden floor with my knees to my chest

you were on your third bottle and i kept watching them pile up
you loved to ruin your body because you said it made you feel as if you had control.
you wanted control.

i think that’s why you always held my hand.
not because you loved me and wanted to
but because you felt as if you had to
in order to keep me in line

i watched you put another pill on your tongue
as your head went back.
i can’t stand the sight of you sometimes
and it makes me want to down that same bottle of liquor to ease my bitterness towards you

but if i did that
you’d call me a ******* alcoholic again.

i learned that love bites
don’t always mean
‘i love you.’

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.

my mother always warned me about drugs.

she always warned me what they could do and how they possibly could end your life

but mama never warned me about the one that had dark brown eyes and a heartbeat.

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

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.

let me write you love notes
i think about how i’ll carve them into the flesh of your cheeks, maybe with a smile
because if you’d just let me tell you about the way it feels when i see you come alive in the darkness, eyes blazed, love taking over your sun lit soul. we could dance on the mattress of the hotel bed while listening to nirvana and i can tell you how about the cards and how they lead me to you. i like your face, it’s quite enchanting. i think i saw it in a dream once.

i tried telling my best friend at the time that i was hurting and my heart was ready to explode, it felt as if my lungs were giving up and i knew i was going to slit my wrists in the bathtub sooner or later with my clothes still on.

he laughed in my face and told me there was nothing wrong with me. i stood there in silence, trying to accept that my own best friend didn't believe me when i said i was falling apart. i cried myself to sleep that night and woke up in my own saliva, it was disgusting.

my best friend told me he loved me to death and would do anything to protect me. he tried kissing me one night and things haven't been the same since. he makes me want to wrap myself up in barbed wire and drop myself off a high cliff, falling hard onto the ground.
but if i tell him that
he'll say
i'm
just
fine.

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.

if one day your
liquor washed mouth
would be as generous and kind
as my fingertips,
my heart would not find
salvation in other bodies that aren’t yours

my tongue and lips are too forgiving
of you and you do not deserve it

so drink up, liquor mouth
that’s all you ever do

i wish i was normal.
i wish the chemical imbalance in my brain didn't control every move and thought that i make. it seems as if my disorders are written across my forehead and my colored hair is a sign of my illness. but last time i checked, i thought if i dyed my hair, the chemicals in the dye would seep into my brain and give me a spare of serotonin.

i mean, it works. for a few days at least. then i'm back wishing i was dead and praying for a solution. i never ******* pray unless it's for my own benefit. i should probably find my peace because i thought i had it.

i told myself i wasn't going to write this because i didn't want anyone thinking i'm a lost cause. but maybe i am. maybe there is no hope for me. i'm happy, genuinely happy, don't get me wrong, but i'm numb too. undeniably numb.

i don't care about what people say, i don't care about their feelings. i don't care.

i may be a water sign
but ****
i feel like fire.

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

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.

cut me with the petals of your favorite flower
let your fingers glide gently on my skin and carve the letters of your name into my flesh

drench me in your favorite perfume so it becomes my permanent scent
the one you adore and look forward to when you see me

there's blood staining my teeth and gums
i wipe it off and it stains my chin
but you still think i'm beautiful

so cut me with the flower petals
and drench me in your favorite perfume
while you wash the blood out of mouth
and carve your name into my flesh

because i finally want to be the one you adore.

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.

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 )

am i all that you ever wanted? or has it been so long that you’ve forgotten? it seems i’m talking to an automatic voice message and listening to these dial tones while i pray for you to pick up the phone, but you’re too busy filling your lungs with nicotine while a girl gives you head

you’re so pathetic, preying on innocent girls like it’s a bloodsport. you have skeletons in your closet, but you swear they don’t belong to you.

you hide your feelings like a corpse you want to get rid of, but baby, the stain remains.

talk to me nice, darling. say those sweet words and i’ll swoon and get into your bed again, before you leave me bare in a hotel room and i have to call my mom again at 4am

endless vicious cycles of lust and hopeless wishes, i learned to accept the fact that you will never ******* change no matter how many times you say you will

and oh, how the tables have turned

you’re the one listening to those **** dial tones now.

he smelt like cologne and regret
but tasted like cherries and cream
every time we kissed, i had a new memory

our first kiss.
eager lips and touching before he got me into bed, and took what was mine. i woke up with aching between my thighs as he told me he loved me while i laid there wrapped in silk.

our third kiss.
it was in a tour bus. everyone was loud, but i could still hear my heartbeat. his breath was shaky and i felt it on my lips before he pressed his on them. his brothers and friends cheered us on.

our eighth kiss.
this is where things got tricky. we didn’t kiss to love anymore, we kissed for lust. he stopped kissing me as an act of care and affection, but started as a way to make me beg for his touch. he knew how to get me eager and ready for him, and he took advantage.

our last kiss.
it was rainy, and i was sobbing as he screamed things that were aching my heart. he was walking out the door when i grabbed him and gave him a final kiss. that’s when i tasted the cigarette ash and liquor. something that tasted bitter.

he no longer tastes
like cherries and cream.

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)

choke down the cherry cola cough drops into your throat with diluted acid from the saturn’s rings she adorned you with. they told her she had venus’ kiss in her irises, and you have the cosmos running through your moon dust veins.

let the calories in the stardust graze your melted coarse organs as you choke on your fester words.

she spun you into the withering web of burning rose petals and expired prescriptions.

oh god, how you thought you were the hurricane but look at how she made your insides into a liquid mess and fed them to your demons.

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.

i don't need your help. my hands are not the ones covered in crimson. yes, they're shaking, but that's because you jabbed the knife in my guts repeatedly until i could no longer process my thoughts and all i can feel was the numbing pain. it didn't hurt, only when you pierced the flesh again and again, but it didn't hurt. you threw my phone across the room and i'm on the other side, i can't call an ambulance and my blood is soaking my shirt and carpet.

all i can hear is you saying that i'm in the wrong and that i'm the one with the knife.

ouch! that hurts, your fingernails are digging in my temples and you're trying to scream hateful verses in my ears as if they were prayers. and before i knew it, i bled out on the living room floor.

he
smells like cologne, the scent fills your nose and you're automatically drawn to him. the scent suits him nicely, and it's all i crave to smell whenever i'm hugging someone else. i get sad because it's never him.

he
spends his days on stage, the lights always falling perfectly on his body and ****** features as he strums his instrument and dances around with no care in the world. he's living in the moment, and i'm watching in complete amazement. he has me dumbfounded, and all i can do is smile.

he
says his name is christian, but i'm pretty sure it's apollo; because he's feared by most and he's more important than anyone else. he heals me in ways i can never bare to tell. his music is breathtaking, and i'm enchanted. he's my apollo.

he
is like poetry. filled with meaning and emotions. he can hook you with just a small hello! how are you? and i wouldn't know what to say if he ever said i love you. but i'm good! thank you for asking, just a little amazed at how you're so beautiful, my enchanting king.


(( it's funny because i keep describing him as such a god and how he holds me captive, but he's actually just a boy in a band who i crave the love of- but listen! he makes my belly get filled with butterflies and makes me feel like a melted popsicle on the fourth of july. i live for the way he makes me feel. ))

there was a warrant for my arrest not too long ago

it was all over the news, and i couldn't help but laugh. why would they put that out? my body standing amongst the blood-stained carpet. they say i'm a murderer.

body found, they found it still in it's clothes in the bathtub but they could still see the mutilation. the place looked horrendous. i knew there was only just a matter of time.

it seemed like those crime series where each episode gets them closer to the killer, but with the way these scenes are being handled, they can't find dna on the body.

they can't find the ****** weapon. all that's there is the trail of blood from the carpet to the bathtub from the victim. out of all places, why did they choose the bathtub? they could've gotten help.

you see, you ask yourself these things because it's ******* logic. i asked myself these things too before my head went under the water.

the aeipthy feeling of this devil who devoured my heart last summer grows every morning and night. i can see still the pieces of my flesh in between his teeth when he smiles, and i never felt so empty.