the static air
burns like every word
you've never said

"i hate the silence,
it's so cold"
and you're growing
colder,
too.

black holes could
never be beautiful;
please, i beg you
not to dig
and scrape at the very
foundations of
who you are
(who i love).

every drop of blood bled
sears me and
i cannot let you
tear yourself open for
lack of a better
method.

lips like wine stain
my cheeks dark and red
(i am drunk)
i slur a prayer and
you stoke the flames in my
belly, they pour out my mouth
they are in the air and
in your eyes

in the dark i see far
more of you than
ever before,
in the dark i know i never knew you.
trace me, disheveled,
i want to see what you see,
too

bring your shovel, for
you are buried;
alive you lay in a coffin well-made
the dimensions fit tight
to your angles and planes,
cut deft by switchblade fingertips...

she presses kisses to your lips as
her sharp hands press you shut
and she is everything you love

like my father i could not bear
to listen to music,
i turned off the classical, i really did, i turned it off
and i cried because

i think,

no
i know i broke something and i know it was my
very own heart

in the spaces you left behind i
slit my finger on every word

i dropped them like shards of glass and
your feet bled,
i saw my reflection and she is no one
i ever meant to be
to you

your blood is on my skin and
my tears cannot wash my body clean

i know you kept my eggshell heart in
a velvet box, but
the lining in the box that laid
in my back pocket
wore away, wore so thin;

and... i thought it best
to give it back to you
than to let it jostle in its
tiny home
until it cracked.

i cried in the shower an hour later.