I love you. All of you. Including your flaws. Maybe especially them. It is to the point where I wonder if I'd love you at all if you were perfect. I love you for everything that you aren't, for every hiccup in your genetic makeup, every nick on your face, everything that they make gels and scrubs to get rid of. For every time you fell short of the mark, every time you almost did but didn't. I love you for all the things you could never love about yourself, all the skeletons in your closet, all the things you'd rather no one ever know enough about to love. And you are completely ignorant to that fact, and perhaps that is another flaw that has me falling more and more in love with you.

I want to be the abandoned house you snuck into every other night
because there was nowhere else to go.
Slam my trembling frame against the wall like an old vase
and smile as every ***** inside me crumbles like books off their shelf in the midst
of an earthquake caused from the faults inside your knuckles
and underneath your tongue.
I want to be every bad habit that you can't break. When there are no more walls to punch, you can leave holes in my bones instead.
When there's a pit in your stomach that you never can fill,
you can shove me in your mouth with both hands and eat fast
and feel me run down your chin.
You can savor the nausea from overindulgence
and grab the crumbs from off the floor.
You can tip me over and lick me up.
When you can't bite your nails anymore, my throat is welcoming your teeth.
Don't be afraid because this is your last lack of cigarettes;
You can always light me up instead, my love.
I can assure you my screams are more addicting
than what any nicotine can give you.
And me? I'm just addicted to the way 'good girl' rolls of your lips.
I'm addicted to being the reason you can't stop, won't stop, don't stop.
I want to be the response to your calls of desperation.
Listen closely to my hips and answer every question they could ever have with your tongue. Tell my neck things that you could never confess to any preacher,
and beg for forgiveness to my thighs until they've giving every ounce of their blessing
to your neck.
Don't worry about collapsing
I will catch all of you and swallow you whole.
Tell me I moan like an angel, even though I feel like sin.
I love the way my ribs creak when I hear you say my name.

Darling, I am not here to write about your eyes and the stars in them. I tried to count too many times and I got too lost in the dreams imbedded in your corneas. I'm not here to talk about how the sun only rises because you give it a reason to, because it still sets every evening so it doesn't have to hear your steady breathing while you sleep. I'm here to tell you about how you have words that cut me like a saw cuts bone and how my ribs are held together with cheap twine and my spine is duct taped together. Here to say that you make my heart race at a pace that my body cannot keep up with. I didn't come to tell you that the tides are kissing the shore every time you laugh, because that's not what your laugh is like. No, if the rusting of iron made a sound, it would be your laugh. There are no flowers woven in your hair - instead, there are hornets and their nests lay settled in your throat and your intention is to sting me every time you open your mouth to say something that isn't my name. This isn't about poetry I've read about the moon and the sun and the cosmic loneliness of every star despite the presence trillions of them in the same sky. This is about how some stars find your presence so alluring that they begin to tumble from the sky and this is what we wish upon. This is about bruised lips mumbling words carved into coffee tables and ****** fingers tracing the rim of your favorite coffee cup. This isn't about love. This is about you.

CARNATION: Every frill in her dress is another piece of your heart broken. She withers in the winter but heaven forbid you see her at her loveliest in the spring.

VIOLET: Her voice sounds like steel cutting through velvet. You squeeze her tightly until she blooms in petals of blue and purple.

DAFFODIL: She's a field to run across but be careful that doesn't take you by surprise and lull you into daydreaming for the next 200 years.

SWEET PEA: By the time you lean close to her an inhale her scent, the sky will have already begun falling; she will have already transformed into vapor and taken refuge in your lungs.

LILY OF THE VALLEY: You'd expect to see her floating around in twos and threes, but she'd rather be hidden behind tangles of ivy, where you'd never find her.

ROSE: Be careful that when your hands are grazing her hips that you don't cut yourself because a woman hides her most important weapons under a layer of secrets and maybe there's more to the waistband of her skirt than you'd like to believe.

WATER LILY: A siren of the sea, she is lilting, singing a sad song and hypnotizing you, but you don't know any better and you want to see if she floats in your hands like she does in the water.

POPPY: Kiss her softly and when she collapses into pieces at your feet, scatter her in your bathwater and pull the drain plug and forget about her forget about her forget about her forget

MORNING GLORY: She stretches in the morning and sunlight rushes to touch her and the stripes of rays on her skin make you remember all the reasons why you woke up everyday for a reason other than habit.

MARIGOLD: Beware of the girl who covers her mouth when she smiles. Sometimes, it's because she doesn't want you to see that her heart is in her throat, but other times she's just trying to hide the fangs.

CHRYSANTHEMUM: Her clothes fall like petals in the depths of secrecy, but if you plucked them off the ground one by one, you'd still never know whether she loves you or loves you not.

NARCISSUS: You only love her because you see your reflection in her eyes and all she ever wanted to do was drown you gently.