I wonder if you’d want to know
I named all of my demons after you and
they haunt me in my sleep

when I was 14 I fell asleep in April and dreamed of bones and
I’m not sure I’ve really ever woken up since

when I lost 5 pounds I never saw a difference

when I lost 10 my mother said I was looking good

when I lost 20 she told me to stop and handed me food
and I became anemic

when I lost 25 I stopped drinking anything because
I felt water had calories

when I lost 30 my mother held me on her lap
and held my bones together for me

when I lost 35 I started fainting every morning and
the doctors could no longer easily find my blood pressure

when I lost 40 people started to stare and food made me cry

when I lost 45 it hurt to walk and to lay down
it hurt to eat
it hurt to breathe and
I started throwing up my empty stomach

the mind plays tricks on those that decide
nourishment is not needed

Eat.

They say home is wherever you lay your head at night
That must be true
because my former house has a lock on the door now;
a lock to keep me out.

I never realized this is how it is to be homeless,
the endless wandering of a place to rest at night
the endless cycle of hunger and
thirst and
protection

I walk out of work with not a place to be in the world
and if I’m being honest it should frighten me.

I am a wanderer.

I have no sense of direction,
no moral pull,
nothing to lose and everything to gain.

I have this endless feeling of discomfort and
an airy breeze where the good in my heart and soul should be.

I am a girl, not a very beautiful or talented one.

I belong to anyone who belongs to everyone.

Home is where I rest my head for a night.

Home is a backseat
Home is a smoke filled room at 2 am
Home is a parking garage
Home is a strangers bedroom

Home is a feeling rather than a location,
but those who have a lock and key and
a mortgage fee will never understand.

I wrote you a poem and all you said was “I love you!”
and I need a whole lot more than that  

Did you know Marilyn Monroe was borderline too
and what did that leave her besides a suicidal mess I do not look up to?
But I guess she did **** JFK so there's that

Today is valentines day and I didn’t say anthing to you about it
because I know you hate February 14
because 2 years ago you had that major surgery

You didn’t talk to me until 4:20 today
and that was only to laugh about the timing
and it's really hard for me to not tell you that I wanted to **** myself today but instead I wrote 5 poems and drank too much coffee

and **** I would really **** for a cigarette right now that
I have to use my charm to get
because im only 17 but somehow
I always “forget” my ID and wear a low cut shirt
and flirt openly with the 40 year old indian guy across the counter
just so I can get my illegal nicotine

I wonder what my mother would say about that

Forever beautiful until I saw you in raw sunlight
and realized you didn't shine anymore
you told me you would always love me
and ever since then I can’t believe anyone

I hate April now
it’s one of my least favorite months
and I blame you for that

One of the last times I saw you in your
beautiful tall pale freckled naked frame
you were inside of me and
you looked somewhere at my chest and
said you loved me

But you could not look into my eyes

And about ten minutes later when I was
resting my hipbones on yours
I started to cry

And instead of holding me close
and drying my eyes
you pushed me off
pulled on your pants
and left

and that was when I realized you are a
fox with a stone cold heart
incapable of caring for anyone

Much less loving them

We are the girls who walk around with little bird bones,
rib cages ready to snap when we spread our wings and
fly away

and for my next act,
I shall disappear little by little until I am ash.

I’m not eating for four days or until
I can feel the ***** that is my stomach start to shrink

I used to refuse food for weeks
it amazes me how self-indulgent I have become

I am ready to eat spoonfuls of air
spin my hair into a models top knot and
know that water is a privilege not a right

a million screaming girls saying
“but im not hungry”
while a tiger flays their insides open at night

Kate Moss said "nothing tastes as good as skinny feels"
and I suppose she is correct
What happens when you learn the tongue is a muscle not to be used

What happens when sustenance is no longer needed
When the mind decides
the very thing that keeps the body alive is a punishment

What happens when you refuse a necessity of being human

We were the mystery
We were the shaking of heads
We were the whispers in the bathroom at 11 am

We were the smoke in the hallways

We were the leaves catching on air currents
like "I don't care how or why but I'm going somewhere"

We were balled up bills in the crook of
someone's sweaty Xanax palm

We were the lamps at night burning
We were the lasers on the ceiling
We were the lines of chemicals waiting on the counter

We were nothing good
nothing but mud and regrets on our feet

The teachers shook their heads
wondered to themselves how we ever got to sleep

You are so beautiful you make my eyes burn
like you are a ray of sunshine-

but I love you more under the moon

we both are marked by craters
deep blue and black under our skin

I traced your veins with my fingers
and I just want to swim in them

I don’t know how many more times
I can write about the curl of your lips
and the way your hair turns at the edges
and about your legs

and chest
oh god your chest

and your collarbones
and the tattoo on your bicep
and the freckle in your eyes
and the dark burnt edge of it all

I don’t know how many more poems I can write
about how I want to love you forever
how I want to take care of you

how much your illness does not
define you as a person of value

oh god I ******* love you

We cover illness with flowers
and flowers die

The inside of my mouth tastes like it is decaying
I hope I lose all of my teeth first

Maybe its just the scotch and *****
But there is a burning in my throat

Maybe it is Satan just making his way out

The truth of it is-

he's not going to fix you

she's not going to make you forget
the way your father would hit you

He is not going to make your collarbones sprout roses
He will not make you forget how to need

The truth of it is-

She is not a savior
She is not able to fight off the demons in your dreams

He will not make you forget the way your mother left
The bloodstains in the bathtub will still be there

The truth of it is-
This is your life
This is not a movie

No one is going to swoop in and save you

You will have to grow your own wings if you want to fly away

You told me I was a pan of hot water and
sometimes it hurt to touch me
but you never thought to turn the temperature down

you just left me boiling

its april 7th and you are still a joke
but somehow you are the only one laughing anymore

I once told you I saw fire in your eyes
and you said it was just the reflection of the
ever burning in mine

I've only now realized that was nothing but a lie

The devil is not red or pointed with hooves
The devil is of flesh
He arrives as the very thing you want most

His name is Lucifer
And he is tall and handsome

He keeps you blind to the raging hellfire
He does not mention you are floating on the river Styx

When he finally pulls the curtain and
gives you back your corneas and irises
You are like Persephone-

you've already eaten seven pomegranate seeds

In the framework of the party house turned trap
you pushed a man to the wall and pulled out your glock 357
and held it to his temple like it wasn’t loaded
and you weren’t angry

and I was in the closet with a boy whose name I never thought to learn
and to this day I have kept your secret

I'll never know what you whispered in his ear as
the bass dropped somewhere downstairs

but I will never forget the way your trigger finger twitched

and the way he dropped his cup
and ***** mixed with cranberry juice fell to the floor
and soaked into the carpet

I wonder if the stain is still there
I wonder if they’d even care if they knew it could be blood
on the ground in their bedroom

and you stalked out after tucking the gun back into your waistband
and pushing your hair back into place

and he leaned against the wall and fell to his knees like he was seeing Jesus

I think the movies ruined my life
I think you ruined my life

I think im sick
I think you made me sick in the head when you left

I think im nuclear waste in a biohazard zone
I think my arms are going to fall off

I check for cancer every day in hopes I have it and
I won't have a reason to live or maybe something more along the lines of
an excuse to say I want to die because
I have this stupid body I'm stuck in

and all I've wanted to ever do was see my bones
I used to think I was in love with the female body but now
I know I'm just in love with my own

for the past three years I have been slaving to the whiteness of my bones
I have been trying to **** myself so I can be cut open

I've been looking at my blood like
I'll finally find the poison that is inside of me

I just need a culprit to blame for this disease that floats around in my skull and wakes up all the dreams I never wanted to see
I just need a reason

I talk like poetry and
I move like a mistake most people don’t understand me because
I speak in similes and metaphors

I speak like coffee is dripping out between my teeth
look I'm doing it here and I don’t know how to stop

I question like a demand and
I have no excuses for the way I move

Maybe I'm just ready to blow the twin towers down again
Maybe I'm ready to crash this body like an airplane

I have this creeping ache on the edges of my bones
like the way crystal forms,
slowly.

Like the way prehistoric bugs that live in caves die every day.

I think I forgot to close my eyes and woke up blind.

I live my days hoping to grow inwards until my bones
start the delicate tearing of my skin and
water fills my lungs.

I have longed for this to happen ever since i was 7 and
I heard drowning was the closest you can get to

euphoria.

there is a certain comfort in the shape of his soft lips,
in the way his bones crack while we lay together,
in the way his eyes radiate

there's this poison that has settled into my baby bones,
splattering fat bruises on my pale skin

there is a certain comfort in the ringing in my skull,
like the long lost school bell of my younger days,
the days of Easter eggs and milky ways

there's this beautiful boy in my arms,
one who smells like rain and laughs like lightning

Moth wings fluttering against my cheekbones
you are warmth
you are light

I am standing at the edge of this ocean
watching the galaxy pool around me

I do not care if it is a halo or horns
you have hiding out beneath your hat

It does not matter to me if you have shoulder blades
where your wings should be

We can press our bones together for all of eternity
We can be an archeological discovery

Love buried in ash
You are forever all I will need

And lately I've been reading all these things
about people being blind and still
having hope and praying to god

Like maybe I can instill some of that into me

Like maybe if I can find some feeling of normalcy
if I find a joke funny or
some lyrics that really speak to me

Cause here I am with two good eyes
when I've got my contacts in and two
working hands that I have yet to do good with

I used to want to help the world but
now I think I only wanted the attention

You asked me by chance in a momentary passing
if I happened to have a lighter

I patted my pockets desperately
for the red one that is usually hidden

I saw you were already turning to leave
and knowing I was losing time

I promptly lit myself on fire just to see
your statuesque form inhale in front of me a bit longer

I watched you walk away into the gray fog
I've never seen you since that day

But I have ever since found myself burning
Literally singed with desire

I hope you choke on the names of our would be children
when it happens to cross into your thoughts
the few nights you don't sink into bed ****** out of your mind

I hope you ***** down the hallway thinking of me
I hope you never make it to the bathroom on time
I hope your stomach acid burns like a ripcord up your trachea

You told me no one had good ***** like I did
And he said it, too
Every last time I cheated on you

Just remember you betrayed me first
Told me to **** someone to put equality back into the universe

It's sad to say I did it out of spite
I could have been loyal

Instead we let each other become driftwood
burning blue and green
and floated away without a fight

Summer raining on the Eastern seaboard
I liked you better before November, personally

There are metal shards floating in this bathwater
Their own tiny islands of pain
A mirror in shards face up on the floor
Guess that is just another 7 years of bad luck

Pennies are dropping into the bathtub
Copper going plink plink plink
Tiny rivulets running their paths

That's just the sound of my lifeline going down the drain, again
Smells like metal and tastes like pain
Red river gushing from my veins

Locked door trying to staunch the flow of secrets
Head swimming to the tile floor
clink clink clink

Scars these days open so easily
Like the Raven said, Nevermore

I know a girl who would **** herself for a dare

I know a girl who has words tattooed on her body like a scroll;
a rite of passage

she found herself face to face with a sleek and solid gun

I know a girl who could make you eat your heart out
on a gold lined platter

I know a girl who laughs in the face of danger
and the fact that a jail sentence is supposed to scare her

a lot of the time she talks in third person
and she skips a few nights of sleep
because once she heard that sleep is for the weak

There should be three crosses on the side of the highway
three bite size graves all in a row
three rotting skeletons collecting dust

When I was young I made a suicide pact
with my two best friends

I woke up on my bedroom floor
stars crossing in front of my eyes
empty bottle of pills still in my hand

At their funerals I kept my mouth closed
Because there are things their mothers needn't know

That should have been a sign
I was meant to forever walk this world alone

I self identify as the mud caked on your shoes
after you stepped in an unavoidable puddle

I self identify as the coffee that burns the back of your throat
every morning around 5 am

which was always right before you went to sleep
and it never failed to make me laugh

I self identify as everything that reminds me of you

I am a museum to your thoughts
your dreams keep me up at night
I can tell when you are cold when you are 37 miles away

I know you just lit your sixth cigarette of the day
I'm sorry you led me astray

I miss you like one would miss bruised knees
(From all our time on the floor)

I miss you like I miss the bottom of the cement pool
(Even though that's where my friends are)

I miss you like I miss razors raking my skin
(But my arms still beg for more)

I miss you like I miss the party scene
(Still think of it from time to time, though)

I miss you like flowers miss winters frost
(Cold and biting, never giving in)

I miss you like I miss hands around my neck
(I think I'd still say I love you, yet)

Have you ever loved someone with

bird bones
paper thin skin
irises like pooling blood on a tile floor

Have you ever loved someone who
wears their heart on their sleeve in the way of a tattoo

Have you ever loved someone like

you wish their arms had heavy locks so that
you could keep them wrapped around you
until you grew tired of their embrace

Have you ever loved someone like
dripping IV bags
ICU at 2 am

Ever loved someone like
laying on the carpet in pain
watch the shadows on their face change
see the door open and close
these days the sunlight always looks the same

Ever loved someone like
dark circles under their eyes

Ever loved someone like
you wish to wear them like a necklace
have them ******* in a locket

Ever loved someone like
I would take a bullet for you

She stopped breaking laws when she
started breaking hearts

Bottled tears in the vial around her neck
She lays in bed like a spider in their web

They say curiosity killed the cat but in this story
Curiosity killed you

And you love kissing her because she is not like the others
She does not pull away out of shame

She kisses hard like brick on brick on window pane
no face aflame

And you love ******* her because she does not hide away
Begs you more more more

She stopped breaking laws when she
Started breaking hearts

Liz Taylor once said:

"Pour yourself a drink,
put on some lipstick and
pull yourself together."

I stopped believing in the positive power of alcohol
when I saw the struggle in my
70 year old great uncles bloodshot eyes
the time I caught him at 2 am
reaching for the whiskey in the top shelf of the cabinet

I apply lipstick every day
all crimson scarlet blood pooling on my breath
all dripping cherry popsicle
all lip stains on your neck and pillowcase
all red on red on red

I can't ever seem able to pull myself back together
Like stitches coming undone on a wound
Like egg shells cracking on hardwood floor
I stopped trying after 3 years of puzzle pieces
These days I make sure I never fall together so I never fall apart

everyone is posting videos
forgetting science
and trying to burn snow
well *** holes it’s called sublimation and
******* for not liking my picture I posted 26 minutes ago

where else is my poor narcissistic soul going to get my ego boost from
I have 34 likes and I need at least 50 to feel like I can be deemed fuckable by the general public
please help me

and you posted a picture
and I liked it and so did your ex-girlfriend
and I ******* hate her and how she can relate to you
and she knows what an IV to the heart feels like and I don’t
but you make me wish I was ill or near death just so I can feel like maybe just maybe we can lay in opposite hospital beds

I loved you so hard I would wake with bruises and bandages

My dreams turned into nightmares that started with beauty
and ended in blood

I put my hands on you and they came away burnt

You are a fire

And open pyre and my touch was the kerosene

What happens if you love so much
you give them everything

right down to the skin off of your back and
your organs and bones

If you ever leave me the plan will be to
drink until the pain is over

But I'm not sure even a never ending hangover
can rid my thoughts of you

Already I feel pieces and memories of you
becoming imprinted into my brain like Braille

I think I would be scared if it didn't feel like
the world is right when I am with you

Sometimes I keep my eyes open when we kiss
and you say it’s odd

I'm just trying to memorize the way the back of your eyelids look
until I can see deep shades of pink and blue in my sleep

A week ago you ate in front of me for the first time
And just yesterday you showed me the open hole in your stomach

It was only a picture of course
I have yet to see you fully unclothed and that is okay

I told the sadness I loved it again tonight
but it didn’t say it back this time

Born into a house of red hair
soulless people and
beer

my great grandmother is 101 and four months
and she has contracted Alzheimer’s
which means she sees those who have died before her
like her husband
two of her sisters and
four of her nine children

Her sister died just yesterday at 100 and 17 days sleeping in her bed

I was named after dead relatives

Moira for a cousin who died at 20,
before I was ever even born,
a cousin who sang like a bird
and could have been a mermaid
a beauty with straight white teeth and blonde hair
who found death after struggling with anorexia

Katherine for my great aunt who I never met
but my mother told me of her wearing sunglasses and
her sleek black car and
silky hair always tied back in red ribbons and
how she would sneak cookies to the children
holding her legs in the kitchen

I was born into an Irish house
I was born to people who have slaved their life away to make it

My great grandmother was born in Ireland in 1912
and came to America with her family when she was 10

my great grandfather was a French Canadian born in Quebec
who I was told was gentle and quiet
who smoked when he was happy or sad
and worked on houses and cars and a large family

I was born into the legacy
I was born with their blood in my veins

They say one in 25 people is a psychopath
and I think you most certainly are one

I could say you are an emotional terrorist

you bit the hand that fed you

you are like a stray dog that is unaware of its situation;
you still think you have a home

you are a hungry wolf limping in winter-
you snarl only out of spite

when you breathe in smoke
you inhale like you are begging for cancer

you inhale like a rough drag can bring you hope

I pledge allegiance to my dad for giving me issues
I would have never known had he never left
I pledge allegiance to myself

I am more self-obsessed than I would care for anyone to ever know

I dress in all black so my relative’s burn
and roll over in their graves

I always spoke out of turn in my classes
and it’s hard for me to admit my mistakes
I have a knack for creating a new face,
I do it practically every day

I probably know your name even if we haven’t met
I occasionally draw attention to myself
just so I can feel justified and attractive

I pledge allegiance to the flag

I quite like this freedom but to be honest
I’d rather have the power

I have sharpened my teeth ready to rip and tear
like soldiers and their swords

I am listening to the sound of the rain on the roof
while you fold your clothes to sad song about madness and memories and it is quiet in the house with the same kind of finality of
a lock clicking of
a door slamming of
a finished book

like a knife slicing through a teen on a Chicago city street at 1 am
no streetlights
no police
no gunshots

just this skin
this blood on asphalt
on sidewalk
on boy
on knife

just blood on the roof of this house like a warning
something wicked resides here do not come near
something that says dangerdangerdangerdanger

Never look back.
Never look here again,
there is something about you that keeps me coming back for more
like you are selling crack ******* on the street corners and
I am an addict panhandling

I know you will leave me when I am hopelessly in love
I know I will not be able to breathe without you.

Without the weight of your body and breath on mine
you will leave me peeled and gutted, spineless.
Every dream crushed like a body thrown from the 40th floor.

You will leave me like tsunamis leave islands,
like hurricanes leave cities,
like tornadoes leave houses

utterly destroyed from the core out,
and you?

You will leave like a bird from a nest.


Weightless.

We always said we didn’t know what we would do without each other
But we did know

We’d only known each other for two years

I wasn’t there when your parents split up and each remarried
or when you had to get stitches on your face
or watched your first scary movie

And you weren’t there when I smoked my first cigarette
or tried to **** myself when I was 13
or when I won that soccer game my freshman year

The last time we had *** we were in a rush
because we had school in 37 minutes
and so we made it sloppy and fast in your shower
and then we drove to school together with wet hair and we laughed

The last time we had *** I got pregnant

This wasn’t one of those scares where you’re two weeks late
so you buy a few cheap tests and it’s negative
so you stash the rest in the back of your drawer and forget about it

I got pregnant on the first day of June and I never told you

I miscarried on the last day of August
and you never even knew how close you came to being a father

We stopped talking and I couldn’t even tell you
how I was stunned into silence when I realized I was going to be a mother and then knew I had to keep it a secret

Knew I had to keep our dark haired future to myself

So here it is the end of February

I should have been having the baby this week or next
and you NEVER EVEN KNEW

I watch you say how much you love this little 15 year old girl
you’ve been dating for six months

I miscarried the day you started dating so tell me that was just a

coincidence

But don't you dare ever tell me you don't know what you'd do without me
Well, I guess you wouldn't anymore

Seeing as how you don't want me

I learned more about you in a Tattoo shop than I should have

I was talking to an artist named Adam
when he mentioned a goblin shark
and how even in 2014
we have only researched 1% of the bottom of the ocean

and until then I would have never compared you to a sea floor
but it seems that is just what you are : undiscoverable

deep
dark
dangerous

I copy ****** expressions I see in the movies

I fancy myself a very good liar but who isn’t these days

you make promises from the bottom of your heart
but it makes me wonder just how deep that is

I try to dig
but all I hear is the echoing of sweet words off this tunnel

You tell me to cut people out of my life and I do
I peel them off like a second skin and leave them bruised

I tell you please don't talk to her
On paper it appears you don't
But you jump to defense every time I quietly say her name

I saw you liked her pictures on my news feed
Even though you unfriended her a week ago

You say you let her go

It appears you are letting her in

Aaron Evans - Magic  
I love you, I really do
    
Alex Forte - ****
*******

Alex S - *****
I hate what you made me become

Andrew T -Beer
Do good in Rehab, dear

Austin Kearns - Lake Water
really?

Garrett A - Pretzels
Burn in Hell

Garrett F - Soy Sauce
I'm so sorry

Hunter G - Cigarettes
You still turn me on

Jason H - Bubblegum
I kissed you out of pity

Jeff C - Water
I'd still Hate *******

JJ S - Ciroc
What a regret

John Bradshaw - Football
How is Pennsylvania?

Johnny Bozeman II - Marlboro Reds
I just really ******* miss you

John Butler - Coffee
Don't ever touch me again

John G - Sugar
I'm sorry I ruined it

Julian R - Cherry Popsicles
Thank you for freeing me

Justin B - Cheap Wine
*******

Justin Haupt - Mint
I really enjoyed all the free *******

Katie Moorman - Red Lipstick
IloveyouImissyouI'msorry

Kyrstin Bruce - Grey Goose
I don't like kissing you

Mario Luppachino - Pool Water
I would've ****** you in my car that night

Michael H - Hash Brownies
Stay Away

Ryan T - Want
Kissing you made me *** in a school hallway

Rusty H - Need
I still wonder what became of you

Sam R - Mistakes
Heard you're a father now, congrats

Sean Ellis - Berry Hookah      
sigh
                  
Steven Spence - Gasoline
I'm a **** person and so are you

Taylor Vaughn - Sunset
Go back to your baby mama

Tim Hoback - Hangover at 7 am
You made me breakfast and gave me your pants

Trevor W - Candy
Time is a funny thing, huh?

Tyler Farris - Missed Connections
If I was a little prettier could I have been your baby?

I fell in love with you all over again in a hospital waiting room

I fell in love with the deep purple under your eyes
like delicate bruising

I fell in love with the paleness of your lips
from lack of nutrients

I fell in love with the way you moved slowly
and achingly wrapped in a white blanket the color of your skin

I fell in love with the deep crimson of your blood
as it ran through your IV

I fell in love with you again as I laid with you in the hospital bed at 3 am

we’d been there for 10 hours
and you had a little too much morphine in your system
and a lack of sleep
when you pulled me close and said

“I could really see myself marrying you some day”

and that was right before you kissed me with your dye stained lips
so they could see your insides better on the x-ray

I fell in love with you again when you looked at me with your
big hazel eyes that turn black around the edges

You said god had sent me from heaven
An angel to watch over you

I'm not too sure about that but what I do know is:

I Do

I’ve got these worn clotheslines
and street wires humming across my brain

in cold winters chill you told me I was eloquent
but I still cannot seem to remember your name

I stopped smoking to make room for you in my lungs
You didn't find that suitable enough so you left

We are the same person if your bed
has held more people in it than your heart

I see this warmth of a summer day
but I can never know the touch of it on my skin

I wonder what it feels like to be kissed by the sky
Probably kind of like kissing

**you

Why don’t you ask your hairline where I’ve been
My fingers have been on your scalp in all of my dreams
You’ve been nowhere to be seen
I’m not sure what I expected but it wasn’t this
I thought I saw you today
I saw you in the lanky legs of the boy next to me
I saw you in the freckles across the bridge of someone’s nose
It’s strange to think that you’re not here
Your memory never left
It still swallows me at night
You are in the back of my eyes
All black and white

I feel less connected each time I come home
Our dogs only bark at strangers
But I've never gotten into the door quietly
My mother and I orbit the house like planets
We crashed by chance four years ago
And we've been in pieces
Drifting farther into the space
That is in our bedrooms
Since that moment
I have started to feel like a ghost
And I can't breathe unless
I am completely alone

I thought I was in love with an angry boy

my mother always told me never to allow someone
into your heart who talks about how quickly his fists can move

never love someone who strikes
then listens

I know girls who will take a backhand
if it is followed by a kiss

But the second time you tried to put your hands on me
I moved and let your body slam onto the table

I am worth more than bruises
and your claiming of an endless love

haven't you ever heard
Actions are worth more than words?

I was 7 when I learned the art of touch
but that doesn’t make me ******’s sister

I was 14 when I thought I figured out *** and love
were one in the same

so tell me why everywhere you touched me
I began to turn black like a the band of a fake ring on a child’s finger

I began to turn a colour I could not wash off
with soap and water

the darker I became the more you began to
smell of rotting meat left out in the sun

you were festering and the holes in your heart
burned through to your skin

sometimes in my sleep
I still smell you waiting in the darkness

and sometimes in the shower
I still find deep marks I cannot ever seem to get rid of

Everyone in this life might mistake the look in your eyes as love
But I will never be so easily fooled again

I’m throwing up on myself in the bathtub
and chain-smoking these Newport box 100’s because I need this nicotine but I could stop if I wanted

I have more willpower than any one person should be allotted
but that’s just the way it is

and I smoke them three at a time in hopes sometime soon this can **** me

its strange to say that I don't know you
when I was under you just a week ago

and you have that tattoo on your neck of the Bayside emblem
and when I traced It with my tongue you moaned in my ear
and you smelled of sour diesel and Marlboro reds and Budweiser

and now im a little partial to that
because that smell is seared into my sinus

and in the morning I would struggle to find my clothes
wrapped in the sheets and try to sneak out of there
before you could grab my wrist with tattooed arms

and whisper “stay, please”

so this is me sneaking down your steps in my socks
and tiptoeing past your Christmas tree
and opening the iron gate in front of your walkway
and this is me driving away in the rain at 6 am

because I should not be sleeping with a 24 year old man when I am 17

They say the grass isn’t greener on the other side
but it has been raining for 3 months straight and
it looks dew blessed to me

sometimes staring at you through windowpane hurts
like there is something in the way the glass glares
in this seemingly ever beating sun

one day you will leave me,
this I know already.
I am already preparing myself for the inevitable to happen.

Hurts my soul and sets my organs on a slow burning roast
acid washing my heart and
pinpricks in my jugular

I try to see you in the darkness
in the light
in the way your brow crunches when you think
in the scar on your dimple.

I tell myself you do not love me like I love you,
regardless of if that is true.

I want to brush my teeth until my mouth forgets your name
and I know I shouldn’t feel the way I do

and I’m sitting by my phone waiting for it to ring
I’ve been here for three hours and nothing yet

I’m painting my nails purple in hopes of brightening
my ever decreasing levels in spirit

you want to know how I got these scars?

I fought a few demons
and i got locked in my closet with your skeletons as well as mine

you know you make my eyes burn

and I’ll never let anyone break me

I tried to poison your pictures

I stuck pins in a doll I made of you

I don’t want to be my mother and sit in my room on Sundays
with the door shut and blinds drawn
and use a headache as excuse of heartbreak

Kiss me with my lips that look like blood pooling
and eyes that look like an exit sign

Sitting on the back porch licking a popsicle
the color of your essence slowly with eyelids closed
and careful movements

I am a snake charmer
a deadly woman
and I am 12

you want me whispering stardust into your ears
and you’re trying to make yourself see it as wrong

But I am all want
I am need
something about me is saying please

I am silk sheets
a sunny day breeze
and I am 12

the edges of my blonde hair comes to the
third vertebrae in my spine
and you want your hands curled in it

you want me like
I am water to the flame that rests in your tongue

you’ve never read ****** before
but you swear I'm the one
Vladimir Nabokov had in mind

We talked about people dying last night
and how I watched them do so

and I couldn’t help but to laugh at the memory
and you were laughing too

and maybe that makes us kindred sociopathic spirits
or maybe it just makes us afraid to be vulnerable
so we look at death and then we laugh like we aren’t really scared

and you shoot animals from your bedroom window
and I have to admit youre a pretty good shot

Its funny that you should mention me ******* your blood tonight
its funny you should say you would cut your forearms open for me
if it wasn’t going to leave scars

like I didn’t know drinking blood and razors were about sexuality

its funny you should mention any of it
because tonight was the first night since the beginning of October
that ive cut myself open just to watch my carcass BLEED

so I wonder what you'll say when you see me in two days
and you find that ive created slits in my skin
that go from shoulder to wrist on both arms

will you ask me to cut one more just so you can put your mouth to it
AND QUENCH YOUR THIRST