i stand as close as humanly possible
to the fire for my a c h i n  g      b   o  n e   s
they weep
but no one will be warm enough
not for the lava you made creep down
my cheeks and they
course through my body like wildfire


and i, a decaying forest.
i try my best to be as useful to the soil as physically possible for dead matter.

standing in the doorway, marble and piercing, a glazed gaze forever so long,
curling crickets and many other mystics amidst,
the somber song resting on the scene...

i need someone who will love me all the time.
not just when they're lonely & bored,
& running out of things fragile enough for them to
take over & call 'mine'.

i need someone who will love me when i'm
sickly sweet cherry cordial, and not just when i'm
drowsy red wine.
not just when i'm their cup of tea that they leave unfinished in the sink because they've stopped to cry.

i need someone who'll love me even when i am a ****,
when i am a wildflower.
not just when i'm the blooming roses, wilting from the time they accidentally knocked the watering can over.

when you touch her do you think of me? because every silent night I think of you honey.

the sky sometimes sets fire to the wind and though
the flames spell out a plea,
the sky's hands remain hidden deep in his seat.

the sky watches the writhing and he swallows the lump in his throat.

they're just twirling, he hopes.

yellow stands for joy!
that's what the roses told him when they pricked him with their thorns.
when he oozed yellow paint from his fingertips, they told him it was joy.
and the red, it stood for love.
the minefield left behind when the skin was singed from his throat. it was red,
and they told him he would cope.
the orange could stand for no other than the sun - when his pupils cracked from dilating too hard, because her light blinded him. and it could never be undone.

the wind is charred now, and slithers on the ground. i hope it finds solace in being found.

there is a fairy tale in which
a mighty princess cowers, under
the vines that
wrap around her fingers.
sweet honeysuckle, they whisper brave nothings. they snake up her legs & cling onto her skin.

she needs, she knows.
she wants to rip her veins apart
with rose thorns as her heart grows.
she dances with the petals and mixes them with her hair, raining ashes into the air.

the uncanny ability to make a king's crown slide. she melts his armour & makes a gold plate, for he would never know cyanide-ridden nettles was what he ate.

poison ivy, the colour of her eyes and her envy. she throws out her silk ties and hexes the maidens next door, she sinks into her demons and lays to rot on the floor.

i held his hand as we sank into the shore.
glass shards, ripping
& stinging our feet. but
i could not ask for more.
i could not ask at all.

the ocean loomed - a heavy shadow,
too dark to be blue. it lapped at our
wounds, like a hungry tomb and
the wind was begging
for me to fall.

quicksand, almost. we were knee deep
into the wrecked atlantis of the creatures
who used to live on the beach.
they once held hands too.
they once had someone to call.

the biggest of waves it was his home it was his place i could not save him from grace it
swallowed him whole.

and i, a carcass along the shore.
i began to understand why hermit *****
said goodbye to their shells with a drawl.