light a match
and
watch it
kiss me down.

You said
I wasn't worth the world,
wasn't worth anything
at all,
my face
still has a red mark
from where you've
hit me, my
body still has bruises
from where
you grabbed me
and didn't let go, as
if you were holding
on to the ghost
of someone
you once loved,
and you wanted to
make sure they didn't
disappear again.
Afterward, you
told me I was beautiful
and then took
it back,
said you didn't mean
to hurt me
but I
still am not
worth anything
at all.

You are making earthquakes
with your hands, destroying
mountains, building cities
from my spine and crushing
them with hurricanes that
fall from your mouth.
Your body is the tornado
whirling through my door
at 3am on a Thursday morning.

You are nothing but
silent death, your blood
drenched upon broken
flowers, your eyes blacker
than the night and your
arms a picture of a war.

These notes were once
all addressed to you because
I always tried to
begin a sentence with something other than your name,
but my hands
only know how to write
about you.

You painted
a sunset in the back of my
throat, so that every time
we kissed, you could taste
something beautiful that
wasn't me.

you gave me
a bullet and a gun
in the form of
a love letter