you told me
you knew
we would bring each other down.
you told me the world was cold
and we would drown in frozen lakes together,
when hypothermia turns to terminal burrowing,
we could burrow within each other.
you told me i would **** you.
after that,
i spent 5 hours in the shower boiling off my skin.
you and i
will not sink in tandem, you and i will not
fall apart in unison,
clasping hands.
i am not your personal suicide pill.
i am not your romantic,
selfless partner
in helpless self-destruction,
you're talking like we'll die tomorrow but i have plans to live a while yet,
if you jump from lover's leap
then you will fall alone.
i think you think
i love you.
i think you think i value
your voice
more than the voice of my thoughts.
it is december and the sun is too bright
to look anywhere
but your feet.
it is december and you're waxing poetic
about the boy who broke his neck
falling in the forest at night.
you look me in the eyes like you're trying
to crawl through my cornea.
you make eye contact an act of violence.
[do you
dream about me?]
you ask,
you're trying to be poetic.
i don't tell you about when i dreamed
you snapped your neck
while we walked in the forest,
and i left quickly,
quietly,
lived peaceful and alone.
i don't tell you about when i dreamed you moved on,
or that reoccurring dream where you spread my legs so far,
they snap out of the sockets.
i tell you i don't dream.
i tell you i don't sleep.
i tell you
i wear boxing gloves to church
but jesus never shows, and really,
i shoulda known he'd run from this fight too.
i tell you
i wear boxing gloves to bed but i just end up
chewing on the laces,
boxer's fractures never visited me.
bar room fractures on the nightstand.
[i dream about you,]
you say,
and i take another hit.
you've been in my air for six months.
under my skin for five,
and it's been three months
since you stitched our veins together.
sometimes,
i fall asleep wearing your scarf
and dream of garrotes that smell like you,
dream of strangulation
and bruises on my throat.
i don't love you like a motive.
you don't love me like a person.
you told me i had a clean heart,
you told me i was an innocent soul,
you told me you would corrupt me, don't
flatter yourself.
your touch doesn't have the power
to make me sick.
only i can do that to myself.
i'm not a virginal sacrificial saint
for you to build altars to.
lets see if we can cut our hearts out with our fingernails.
i bet that they'll look just the same:
****** and red.
the same size as our clenched fists,
guess it's not your fault
you never learned the difference between the two,
you keep trying to fight with aorta and arteries
while my knuckles bruise your gut.
here:
i taped my hands and i'll tape yours too.
this will be a fair fight-
don't break your wrist
when you break my nose.
i'll teach you i'm more solid than a saint.
i'll teach you i am bile and spit and ****.
i'll teach you to love me human
or not at all.