You once told me I was hypnotic
and a few days after that I had a vision
that included us killing each other

and you shot me dead
before I could even pull out my knife
and I think that’s a pretty **** accurate representation

I always said that to shoot someone is pretty non personal
and this is nothing but

so I started to carve little rotten raspberry slits in your skin
and the juice ran out in tiny rivulets on flayed open bone
because that’s true

you flayed me open with
the razor in your tongue and
the cold steel of your shoulder and
you broke my bones with the hammer in your eyes

so I guess I just feel like I deserve more than a
bullet to my chest

I don’t think I was the one who deserved to die

I have this antifreeze in my veins
I have icicles wrapping around my kidneys
and you thought you were the only one with a disease

I’m ******* the air out of your lungs
and nothing has ever tasted so sweet on my tongue

and I’m just trying to breathe you in

and sometimes I’m scared I will eat your skin
sometimes I think I'll cut my eyes on the glass in your smile

they say Betelgeuse will explode someday
and yet it is the brightest star in the sky

We both love things like creeping ivy
we swallow it all whole

I once broke your jaw in my sleep
because I dreamt it would make you soft-spoken

and I feel like a bull barreling down a thin hallway
and you are sleek black paint jobs

and I am just your unexpected ****** nose
spilling out onto the pavement and
dripping on your pressed button up shirt

I am this acid on your tongue slowly melting
and you wish I’d do it quicker
because I leave a bad taste in your mouth

and im sorry for that

I never meant to step on your toes with my
heavy boots
and this 35 pound heart

and this skin that seems to grow and fade from view
because I am in the midst of becoming invisible

and just last Thursday I walked through my first wall

But I guess you would know a thing or two about that

because I haven't seen you in over two months
so would you tell me where you disappeared to?

I was born in blood
and I have a tendency to like the darker things in life

I ate my twin in the womb
and I broke free into life with that victory

and ever since I have felt like a caged animal
all gleaming teeth
all bite
all bone

I am partial to the boys who have a side sweeping gaze that seems to say
“I could shoot you if I really cared enough to”
because there’s a little bit of danger in us all
and sometimes I just like the obvious

my heart isn’t on my sleeve
my heart is a long black drip
a charred line

my heart is an empty fireplace waiting to incinerate
whoever thinks the flames won’t really burn

I was born in high relief
and have spent my life keeping others from whittling me down

I am not a sculpture
I am not yours to mold

and here’s this boy putting the barrel of his loaded gun in my mouth

and here’s me saying take a walk on the wild side
wondering if my eyes can convey how badly I want him to

pull the trigger

I touched you in your dreams darling

I felt the cold steady beat of your heart
thawing out like flowers in spring

I touched you in your dreams my dear

like a coiled snake ready to strike
I tasted the venom in your teeth when I kissed you

I touched you in your dreams love

and I felt the slow shifting of my spine
as the vertebrae started their tender ache

I touched you in your dreams darling
and it felt like a mistake

So bide your time and be glad you’re not me

sometimes I wake up at 4 am
desperately stumbling out of bed
and knocking over the wine next to me

and squinting my eyes in the light fumbling
for a pen and paper

because I’ve got these words in me
that haunt me in my dreams

like hands reaching up through ancient graves

you are the crypt keeper
you feel like dust
and taste like paper

my life feels like a mausoleum

and if you are questioning how one’s life could be compared to such a thing it’s like I said-
be glad you aren’t me

At 14 I was sent to the hospital twice because
I was hallucinating which is a fancy way of saying
hey, you’re batshit crazy so we’re going to pump you full of medication

Turns out all of the walls I had been seeing crashing down
and the fires that were never there
were always just a side effect of my depression medication
because I was on too high of a dose for my weight

And I told my ex-boyfriend this when I was 16
and now, 8 months later he is telling everyone I am schizophrenic

like baby there’s a lot of things I am but that’s not one of them

Like there’s a lot of things you are
but a good person was never something I would use to describe you

you're more of a waste of space
and I really wish you had never left Chicago

I wish I never even met you

I wish I hadn’t been so desperate for the way you moved
your thin body like a train down the rails

I wish I had never agreed to play with your hair in class
or sat in your lap with your arms around me tight

or caught sight of you in my eyes
like a glare through a window there was nothing else