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

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

You told me the first time you ever met me
you knew you had to have me
I wonder when you realized I wasn’t some limited edition video game
that you could turn on and then leave for later

I guess never because all you ever did was play me

I fell in love with the sound of your name on my tongue
like a shiny copper penny dropping on hardwood floor

a l e x
al-EX-and-eR
ALEX

I fell in love with your 6’2 frame and the way
I could have sipped wine from your collarbones if I had desired to

Your favorite drink was strawberry *****
and I have to admit after drinking a whole bottle
in the shower with you one night
I’m a little partial to it now too

We started dating October 12, 2012
and our clothes fell off eight days later in your waterbed,
three days short of my sixteenth birthday

and that was the same day I met your mother
who hugged me and told me how beautiful I was

I wonder how long you wanted to return me
to get at least half of a refund

I’m not really sorry you never got your money and time back
You were never a game to me
I never pressed pause on you

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.

I’m sorry I haven’t thanked you for the sacrifice
I’m sorry I ruined your body at 30
I’m sorry people say we look alike

I’m sorry I hurt you
again
and again

I’m sorry for the blood in the bathtub
and the purple dye
I’m sorry for the bleach

I’m sorry for the mold
and the rot
and the court dates

I’m sorry for the failure
and the soccer games
and the hurt knees

I’m sorry I wear all black
I’m sorry I orbit you like a first born curse
I’m sorry we are both too head strong

I’m sorry I make you look bad
I’m sorry for not calling
I’m sorry for wanting to leave

I’m sorry for the smoke
I’m sorry Mom
I’m sorry for the months I wouldn’t eat

I’m sorry for the bones
I’m sorry for the lies
and the stealing and the hospital stays

I’m sorry for the time
I’m sorry you were forced to make a commitment out of me
I’m sorry I’m 17

I’m sorry I’m sad
I’m sorry for the medicine I didn’t take
I’m sorry for the car accidents and the tears on your favorite sweaters

I’m sorry it’s taken me 17 years to say this
I’m sorry I am like a stray dog
I’m sorry I make it hard to love me

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

My mother once threatened me by saying she would cut off all of my hair like I guess she knows what my weakness is
and I think I’m like that biblical story about Sampson
All the strength is gone if I lose my hair

I wish I could tell her all the reasons I ever lied
but I can’t anymore so to my sisters: may the bridges I burn light the way

in 8 months I’ll be officially gone so just keep that as a little reminder
to be good you don’t ever want to end up like me

I spend my days with my head in my hands

and ever since I was little I’ve known I would die at 27
and I tell everyone I get close to
and they always look at me like I’m standing on
the edge of a building when I whisper this and maybe I am

and there’s a white lighter in my pocket for my autopsy
just like Kurt Cobain and Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix

but maybe all I really want is someone to save me before I happen to fall

I feel like I've been in air tumbling to pavement for years
and somewhere in this time I've caught fire

So now I wonder if I'll burn out or break all my bones first
And if I'm being honest it doesn't really matter to me anymore

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

I went to my last counseling appointment today
and when i stood up to leave
I felt as if I should shake her hand

but instead I walked out that door on tentative fawn legs
I stepped into the cold
and I felt like a stranger to myself

I bought coffee and a pack of cigarettes
and stood by the same ledge I always do
but it didn’t feel the same

I have her card in my front pocket for emergencies only
I feel as if I just stepped into harsh burning sunlight
I feel like there is winter air trapped in my lungs

I've come to the conclusion that
there’s nothing really wrong with me
but there’s nothing all that right either

Oh yes im so concerned about what poison this cigarette will bring me when just two hours ago I dropped my speakers into the water
in hopes of electrocuting myself

but instead I just drowned 200 dollars
I always try to break as many rules as possible while driving
because I have this fantasy about a cop ******* me

or maybe just because I like the idea of getting away with things
I'm not nearly as complicated as you'd like me to be

and I'm sitting in 14 inches of ****** water from my slit wrists
so ask me why I'm laughing about this
like I'm finding the shine of the razor funny

I don’t ******* owe you anything

and I haven’t eaten in two days
I wonder how long ill keep this up this time
last time I nearly died

so ask me why that was the happiest time of my life
when I fainted daily and lost 40 pounds in 3 months

Don’t tell me its impossible or that I look healthy
because I make you have slit wrists as well

I have 4 butterfly knives and im okay with using them
just ask all the things ive buried in the woods behind my house
just ask me how I feel after kissing these poison frogs

and life is no longer a ******* simile

I haven’t left the house in a week
and I take three baths a day to keep me from feeling *****

so please tell me what that says about me

and you thought being a starving artist sounded romantic

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

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

Why am I the happiest with
your hands around my neck

You have sharp teeth
and you leave indentions in my skin

I want to let you know that its okay
to want to crawl out of your skin

You awake with cracked bones
I chipped my jaw on your frozen over shoulder

I saw you digging in the backyard
Another hole to hide your growing secrets

I wonder when you will stop watering words
And start digging them up by the roots

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 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.

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

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

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

We were on the jetty eating orange popsicles
and staring out at the glittering afternoon sea
I was eight years old the first time you ever uttered the word

cancer

it wasn’t a just a sickness anymore
it was definite
it was terminal
something permanent

I was eight years old the last time I held your hand
as we walked back to the car

I haven’t been back to Maine since
or on a jetty even though I’ve always loved them

I was eight when I went to church and prayed for you the entire service
little knobby knees kneeled on the velvet

I was eight when you died

I was eight when I told god to go **** himself
and ever since then I’ve had a hard time with belief

I’ve had a hard time being in a church without feeling angry
I was eight when you were buried
and it still feels like it happened just yesterday

Its been almost a year
and I still can’t forget the way it felt like a graveyard to kiss you

I’m still trying to get the taste of dirt and formaldehyde off of my tongue

and according to a recent poll taken by me
I miss you more than the legal limit

so tonight I’m calling the police in hopes they will arrest me  

another broken heart taken off the streets

When a boy tells you that you are the only one and
It feels like the inside of a morgue to kiss him
Do not ignore the taste of dust and formaldehyde

Do you want to catch a movie
he asks in a voice like chocolate milk
Or maybe you'll catch chicken pox instead

You don’t really see the difference anymore
Either way you get these marks along your skin
that burst and glow like tiny fireworks

When a boy who carries a knife in his back pocket
and who has no scars on his fingers
tells you there is something special in you

do not believe him
do not stop and ask why
do not look back

He will not be able to tell you anything besides
how beautiful you are
He will not mention the depth in your mind

He will not sigh at the light casting shadows on the planes of your face
He will not talk about the slight curve of your spine
or the curl of your toes

When a boy who seems like paradise threatens to sweep you off your feet
chain yourself down do not be caught in a whirlwind
you were made for more than *this

I woke up in someone’s backyard under the stars
with a cracked iPhone and a handful of pills that weren’t mine
but I took them anyway

and you were laying half under me with white residue under your nose
and a black eye from where you punched zack trying to get away

because he’s on the run and we needed somewhere to stay
and he broke your brand new **** in half

I woke up in the backseat of your car under a blanket and you
from too much drunken *** in the middle of the woods

and I got out of the car and tucked your **** back into your ***** pants and watched the rest of the flames turn to embers

as our friends smoked the last of the ****
and I could have sworn Kyle was drinking the **** water
which was straight from the river

and you stole $14 from me that night
and you were bleeding from your brain
but that’s okay

because my heart is still the only thing harder than the
rock you cracked your skull on

I finally died on a Wednesday night

My dad was in Atlanta with his family
But that’s the way it’s always been
And that’s the way it will always be

My mother was at her boyfriend’s house 15 minutes away
Starting her new life
The one where she tries to forget about me
Maybe if she keeps redecorating his house
She can find a way to hide me in the corner
Collecting dust and spider webs
My picture on the wall hidden by a sea blue curtain

And my siblings were in his basement watching TV
Probably fighting and getting ready to sleep
I never knew that every time I refused dinner or a movie with them
I was sealing my fate like my coffin lid

I was born on a Wednesday evening
5:15 pm at 4 pounds
I entered this world early and that’s how I left it

I killed myself on a Wednesday

I left behind cabinets full of pills I always said I would take
I left 19 notebooks of half written poetry
A few finished paintings and pastel scribbles
And a bowl of almost empty cereal left in my drawer

I left with scars on my body and burns

I left three bobby pins in my boyfriend’s window sill
Locks of my hair still in the kitchen trash
Lighters and pipes still hidden under my mattress

I left my bath water in the tub, turning cold as my body
***** socks crumpled in the corners of my sheets
I left my favorite shirt on my floor

I left my books opened
Underlined all the words I never could say aloud
I kept my favorite CD in the player in my car

I left my toothbrush out and my window open

I left an unfinished prophecy

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

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

You did a really good impression of my dad
by walking out of the front door
and never looking back

and I think that’s quite why
I was so interested in you in the first place

you talk like a man
and walk like a ghost

and you disappear every afternoon around 5 pm
and you don’t show up until a little after 12 am

and you left me home with my mother
and this loaded gun

But they say home is where the heart is
and yours has since run cold

As Jim Morrison put it-

“come on baby light my fire”

Well consider me burnt

I am the embers of a dying flame
I am an ashtray in your heart

I am the curl of smoke on freshly lit incense

I am light
I am light

I am bones in a field

I am a solitary crow

I am smite
Baby, I am fading light

I’m sorry you fell for me in July
I’m sorry you kissed me in August
I’m sorry I broke your heart in September

I remember we first met in a parking lot in Lynchburg
and your skin burned a warm caramel in the sun

we went to the forest and walked on the trails
and I think you almost bent me over on a little wooden bridge
but instead I pulled you between my legs and kissed you
and your perfect gleaming teeth

we ran the trails
me in my beat up purple vans
and my beat up black and blue heart

and you with your pristine tye dye shirt
and the hard abs underneath
cross lateralled over bone

and because of you my favorite flower is now a
bright and vivid sunflower

we broke into an abandoned house
and laid in the dark on the cool floor

and I took pictures of you as you played earl sweatshirt

like hey maybe one day we could live in a place like this
and just...
be

but that was all before I crushed you
with the weight of my heavy heart

and left you in a pool of blood on the floor
of that abandoned house

and seemingly never looked back

I sat across from you every
Monday Wednesday Friday
and I fantasized about us fighting every second of it

because the cheekbones in your face beg me to
indent them
like you are made of paper and glass

I am a matchstick house
glued together with bad intentions
lighted by your glance

and the bones in your knuckles caught me off guard every time
and how the skin stretched tightly like canvas on a frame

and all I wanted was your hand around my throat
and the other one making blood spurt from my nose

so maybe its best we never really spoke

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

You say-
be gentle with me
and when I am
you move my hips and make my hands a bit rougher

until i am scratching at the skin on your chest
like I am trying to force my way inside you
but instead you’re just inside me

you told me not to pull up your shirt
or touch anywhere below your ribcage
because you have secrets you are not ready to share
and I will be patient of that

because you have more to offer than just
the holes in your stomach or
the bags under your eyes or
the disease in your veins and DNA

you are more than the hour and a half effort it takes you to shower
and not being able to eat if you want to see me

you are much more than the
skin that sticks to your bones

and I don’t know how to tell you that

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

You are cold tile in summer
I am bare feet

The sun rises and dies for you daily
The moon watches you sleep
Watches dreams from deep underneath eyelids

Irises like cliff diving
If you look down you cannot breathe
I wish to be the air caught in your lungs

Skin beneath my fingertips
Softly yielding
We are the last two on earth
I would choose no one else to be lonely with

I am drawn to you like a moth to flame

Desire like a trick candle on a birthday cake-
There is no burning it out

Smoke curled from your mouth like ribbons
I wished to be your cigarette
If only for the chance to be close to your lips again

I want to breathe you in
Have you lingering on my tongue like melting candy

When I was little I thought happiness was a magic potion
Now I know happiness is a feeling
Caught in the gaps of my ribcage
Only to be discovered with the x-rays that are in your touch

I am in deep blue water
Feather light
Using thoughts of you to keep me afloat

There are flowers sprouting from my heart
Your touch holds my bones together
You are a skeleton made of stardust
There is magic in your breathing
I find myself longing to inhale it

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 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?

Life is tricky to me
I like to call it science
and I am ready to believe in anything that might be able to give me sustenance like star signs or mythical monsters or

You

When I went to sign up for college I sat in my car for an hour
with the windows up and no air conditioning in the middle of august because I wanted to punish myself for my weakness called anxiety

im really very good at punishment

just ask all the friends I've lost
because I tried and succeeded at ruining them
and then couldn’t hide my smile in the inevitable confrontation
that followed

I told my counselor I would have rather done time than do
community service and she couldn’t hide her shock
and I asked her what did she really want from me

what does she really know about me besides what I let her know

I know that her middle name is Carol and shes 37
and has a little boy because she always drinks out of a cup that says mom and shes always twisting her wedding ring
and she likes black heels and she never gets her toes done
but she does her nails every week at the place two blocks down

I know because ive staked her out
and at Kroger she heads straight to the vegatables and she never eats meat

and she will never know whats really bothering me

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

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)

Sometimes my hands get really itchy
like my bones are trying to crawl their way out of
the skin that entraps them

I get really nervous when I can’t write
You speak in riddles and you're making me crazy

And last night I told you that if hell was real
According to Dante there are 7 levels
and I think I belong in all of them

And we talked about heaven
and you said that you think heaven could be here on earth

And I laughed and said maybe in bits and pieces
but I think my heaven is all chopped up

And then it was silent for a long time
and I realized that you were subtly saying
that it felt like it was heaven with me

Maybe I just shouldn’t speak but I want you to realize is
I am all dark and sin
I am rust on your shine

I like how you don’t tell me why you go to court
like I can't know your secret

Like there's something in you that you don’t want me to find
a part of you that I don’t want to meet

I told you I was evil over the phone and you laughed and I didn’t
and then you paused and got real quiet and said

“Me too”

We’re sitting in your car at 10 pm
listening to dubstep coming from the dashboard

And you are in my mouth breathing heavily with raised hips


And baby don’t leave me with this gun
This game just isn’t any fun without you and your leather coat

There's a knife in your pocket and its making me bleed

So tonight ill have to leave you alone

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’m fascinated by the way your faulty intestines
rest on the insides of your ribs when you lay on one side
and the way my spine tries to rip its way out of my back

I want to know why my shoulder blades feel as if
one day they will become wings
and allow me to fly away

I’ve wanted to be somewhere else for a long while now
my feet don’t really seem to fully hit the ground anymore
I am a vortex gaining speed

and they say getting hit by lightning twice is so highly improbable
but what happens when I am struck by lightning every night

what does it mean when I wake up covered in blood
and desperate for something unnamed
something that hides out in my dreams

and all I’ve ever wanted was a few answers

like if there is a god why does he allow hell on earth
because I’ve been burning at the stake ever since I turned 7

and this charred flesh of mine feels like acid
and tastes like asphalt

this little body does not feel like home

there's a buzzing in this spine
and a nervous rattling in this skull

I’m looking at you in the passenger seat
like maybe someday you can be my home

ill crawl up next to you under sheets
and we can keep each other warm
and listen to the sound of our quick beating hearts

I can see us on a porch in our late 20’s
in a nice place like Boston or Maine
but it doesn’t really matter to me
as long as we’re together

the scent of your skin is like a seatbelt
the soft caress of your hands on the small of my back
is a reminder that

I am yours

I couldn’t imagine a future without you
I see us holding hands in a park
licking ice-cream cones

I see you in the morning waking up next to me
hair disheveled with sleepy eyes

I see us in picture frames along our staircase
I see us drinking wine in bed at night

I think about kissing you every day of my life  
I see you in my dreams darling

and you feel like home

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 was born again the first day I ever laid eyes on you
Right there in the doorway

You in your little blue dress and white diamond smile
and me a little sad and scared and looking for something in your curves

I had been warned about you
I had been told you were
a snake
a plastic *****
a lunatic
a ****
and you were all of those things

but I worshipped you
as did everyone else
we kissed your golden feet

I listened to you like Eve in the garden of Eden
and I took a bite of that apple
and nothing has ever been the same since

for that short time I think I found a little bit of heaven in hell
and it was always bliss in your arms

and how you scraped your lips against my teeth in the dead of night

and dear lord who art in heaven hallow be thy name
I have prayed for you

I have prayed and I have called out your name

I met you on your eighteenth birthday
and they say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree
and you are my roots reaching down into the green earth

you are the queen of all queens
you are made of divine intervention
you made me bleed

Did you really expect love from a girl who
compares herself to gasoline
But do you really want a girl who dreams of
lost things every night to love you
I eat chocolate frosting out of the jar
And I always bring a gun to a knife fight
A back alley stabbing with gold bullets
Do you really expect someone who sleeps
With her boots laced and bag packed
To be capable of love
I have mirrors in my corneas so when
I look at you
It appears that you are the only one I've ever seen

Im about as subtle as a gunshot wound on a Thursday afternoon
and everyday when I wake I forget how to use my feet because
you were the bones in them and now you are missing

one day will I be able to say your name without sounding like
***** in a wastebasket in an office

without sounding like a dead deer carcass in a stream

last spring you took me to the park
and we walked the trails and layed in the pine needles
like nesting phoenix and I think you burned me on purpose
well I have yet to rise from those ashes

all I ever did was ******* love you

remember when your parents went out of town
and I spent the night in your bed and when I woke up at 11 am

I saw the sunlight streaming through onto your face and oh my god
you were just so beautiful

remember when we got drunk and spent the night
in your backseat after you threw up 3 times in the street

do you remember
do you even remember me

I think of you at least 7 times a day
and I always thought you were all I ever needed
but here I am now

learning how not to need you

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

I once sat on a blood stained pedestal
praying to a god made out of porcelain and water

I once saw through my enemies and
crushed their spirits under my black combat boots

I lie in the face of police
I lie in the face of my mother

I wear these scars like a noose