I feel like I should walk around armed
because your body is a loaded gun
and if it came to a shoot out
I wouldn't survive, I couldn't survive

Your finger is always on the trigger
and I can't find a way to disarm your gun
on the best of days they're salt bullets
that could break my bones

when I was young
I was always told to be respectful
so when a man with a bristly beard rubbed up close to my face
I learned to laugh it off
and call him uncle
when he was no relation to me
he'd act like my body belonged to him
and kiss me on the forehead
i'd squirm
my teeth would grit and I would break into a cold sweat
and i'd laugh along

now I see a man with a bristly beard
on the train on the way home
who calls me darling and says i'm the prettiest girl he's ever seen
a chill runs up my spine
so scared that his bear hands will grab onto me
and drag me away
my teeth grit and I break into a cold sweat

I say thanks while holding back panicked tears and get off at the next station and hope to god he doesn't follow me off

you say you'd rather die then me call an ambulance
but you drank so much baby
so much that I couldn't bare seeing you lying there
dying there
so i picked you up
and tried to carry you there myself
but it was so far
and it's not like you're heavy
you're wafer thin
probably because you don't eat
not a single thing on a week day
I asked if there was anyone I could call instead
and you didn't reply
but i know if you could have you would have said
'don't call an ambulance you promised'
and so I didn't
I didn't even take you to the hospital
I just sat you up and wished for at least a bucket
under the third streetlight from the main road
and when you stopped breathing I had to save your life
this happened twice
right there on the pavement
and I did it to make you happy

when you woke up in the morning, or more like later that day
you thanked me for a great night with a kiss on the cheek
and didn't reply to my text that asked
'you ok babe, text me when you get home safe **'

I wanna be with you on a million different days in a million different ways

I want my sheets, my pillows, my towels and my hair to smell like you

I want to leave your side with your geography memorised,

to the point where if I needed to, I could write flash card upon flash card

about your face, your smile, your thighs, your throat

I don't want you to be my boyfriend

I don't want you to say you love me

I just want you to stay right in that spot,

that spot right above me

rocking into me, you're so funny.

I want to walk around every day with a new mark from your mouth or your hands

on my throat from where you ****** me a gentle apology;

for before when you throttled me so hard I saw stars

when everything went black all I saw was you

and woke up proud of those marks too

I don't want you to be my boyfriend

I don't want you to say you love me

I just want you to stay right in that spot,

that spot right above me

rocking into me, loving me

I don't want to leave my room
because i know if i saw you I would follow you anywhere
I'm trying to make a house out of you
while you've already been made into an apartment complex
I hope your walls tumble down
and there's mould found in the corners and cracks of the kitchen
so you would come to me
so i could build the walls, so high
and sit inside you and not feel like this ever again

it wasn't even a special day when I decided to love you
it was a tuesday and you were at my house
and our legs touched under unwashed sheets
and i imagined that touch
on someone else

i curled my arms tighter around you
and you wheezed
as If me, a boa constrictor
was suffocating you

you didn't kiss my face
or turn to face me
your breath just huffed

and your leg trailed further up mine

and i wondered if you could hear my beating heart
or the beating distance louder

my mouth is filling with bile
every word I speak is a product of the bile filter
putting acid into my words
turning them green, sterile
sour tasting when they leave my tongue
I can only imagine being the person receiving the words
which were changed, almost without my willing them at all.