There is something beautiful about two sad people who agree to hurt each other.
Something comforting.
It is a comfort only very damaged people understand- the tacit agreement to cause pain, and to receive it.
Pleasure is for people who have what they want.
But for those of us who are starving, ours is best peppered with suffering.
Being with someone who understands that carries its own worth-
I don't want you to make me feel good.
I couldn't stand it if you did.
I don't want you to touch me gently, or ask if I'm alright, or stop to look into my eyes.
I am starving, and so are you: I want your teeth.
I want you to make me hurt. And I want to hurt you.
I want you to hurt me because I'm not him, and I want to hurt you because you're not her.
We want to see each other suffer because we are starving and we need to feel that someone else is.
Don't hold back. I want you to lower me because I'm too good for her.
Don't love me, don't caress me. Dig your nails in. Drip candlewax on my stomach.
One step down from torture is all I can stand in the way of human connection, when it isn't her.
Punish me for looking at her like a baleful puppy tonight, even as you waited in my room with your soft skin and your sharp teeth.
There is nothing you can do that will be too violent, too brutal, too sadistic.
I don't want to be loved right now.
I am too raw.
I want to be touched. I want to be ruined. Leave marks. Smear lipstick.
Lower me because I am
Too
****
Good for her.
Let this heart know on no uncertain terms that its needs don't matter.
Help me **** it. Help me pin my demons to the bed and make them writhe, and I will do the same for you.
Let's exorcise our loves tonight and banish them to hell.
Let's tell our skin that it is irrelevant.
Let's say "*******" to the things that bind us. I will cut your heart out for him.
I will kiss your scars, not to heal them but to remind you that when you put them there you fought for something, something we both fight for now.
Hurt me. Fight her. Do it for her.
Do it for her because I'm not good enough to hurt.
Do it for her because I'm TOO good to hurt.
Crush me.
You could boil me alive and it wouldn't make up for her, so at least leave me bruised.  
I will give you what you need, and you will give me what I need: not love, but contact.
Please,
Let my heart know on no uncertain terms that its needs
Don't
Matter.

There is something beautiful about two sad people who agree to hurt each other.

do not date a girl
who writes.
she will internalize
everything,
carve poems
into your eyelashes
instead of
kissing them,

she will analyze you,
calculate age
from the rings
your coffee cup
leaves
instead of refilling it.

she will memorize
the way your
lips curl around steam,
but not that you
take it
two sugars,
no cream.

she will read your
palm instead of
holding it
against her chest.

she will not
blink
when you leave,
because she is
already
romanticizing it.

“Write about ***” I whisper to myself
“No. No, that’s disgusting” I respond with vigor
“Write about love.” I suggest in the condescending tone adults often take with me
But I do not want to write about love,
I have never been in love
I have never felt anything like love
I hate writing about love
I hate the pronouns
I always want to write about hers
About the smell of perfume on her dress
And the way her hair curls and twists like the plotline of an Oscar Wilde novel
I always want to write about she’s
And the way she never makes fun of my silence
And the way she laughs
And the way she cheats off of me in geometry,
Even though we both know my answers are always wrong
She’s like a triangle
A cute
But if I were a shape
I’d be obtuse
Because when  we walk to together in the hallway I always get the urge to grab her hand
But I never have
And  I want to tell her to take off her makeup because she’s just so perfect
And you know she cried last week and I didn't know what to say
I never know what to say around her
But she never minds, she can have a conversation with me and I never have to say anything
And some days it takes all my restraint
Not to write about her
And I want to write about how I love her
I want to write about the way I love her
But hatred always hits me in the gut
And pain in the face
And shame cripples my fingers
So that I can never write she
And when he comes out of my pen
I rip the pages of my failed poem out of my notebook
And cry
Because I can’t stand writing lies

Don't look.
The world's about to break.

Don't look.
The world's about to chuck out all its light
and stuff us in the chokepit of its dark,
That black and fat suffocated place
Where we will **** or die or dance or weep
Or scream of whine or squeak like mice
To renegotiate our starting price.

No, you're wrong.

Everyone is as beautiful
as they can possibly be

Particularly at lunch
in a laughing restaurant

Everyone is as beautiful
as they can possibly be

And they are moved
by their own beauty

And they shed tears for it
in the back of the taxi home

His teeth are crooked, bent and brown
   he grins with mirth, eyes pointing down
   his hollow head contains a thought
   friendly, yes but pleasant, not.

His whims, in fact, are quite alarming
   for what's on his mind is harming.

He wants to steal and take what's mine!

Alas! Why must Death be charming?