i marinade my fingers,
banana pepper juice, hot wing sauce, sriracha,
i beg you to come close enough so that
i can burn every inch of your lukewarm skin

i'm not looking for revenge
i just want you to know what it feels like
to be set on fire and live to talk about it
when the sun blazes tomorrow

i drank enough whiskey for ten men last friday
and followed familiar footfalls,
i held myself up on barstools and good friends
and watched the door, waiting,
confusing look alikes through blurred vision

when you finally sauntered in
i saw it in slow motion,
i felt absolutely nothing
except hammered and free

Enough.


I can't listen any more to your idiotic questions.

I come home to you like I meant too.
and I'm I meant too?
I sit my heart down for a chat,
but it's not listening,
I can't rationalize the feelings of my heart,
I can't turn to you and discuss the course,
and I am left lone dealing cards to the ghost of your love.

The first time I skipped a meal, I spent the night with a gnawing pain in the pit of my stomach.
The first time I cut myself, I threw up at the sight of my own blood.
The first time I made myself sick, I cried.

The first time is always the hardest, but it only gets easier after that.

Years down the road now,
I can see the beauty in what I've done.
The breath-taking wonder found in decay.

Tonight I sit on the pavement
outside my apartment.
My fingers curl around the
rusted chain-link fence.
Sharp edges of broken wire
left cuts not nearly deep enough
on my arms when I squeezed
through the hole next to me.

I don't live anymore than the metal at my back.
Just like the fence I am merely existing.

Months from now,
my kidneys will run
the risk of failing.

Already my teeth are
stained and eroded from
stomach acid.

My bones knock against
one another from shivering,
and the pavement underneatth
me chews at my tailbone.

When someone asks for a picture of me,
I give them the grainy photograph of the hole in the fence.
Just like it I am rusting. Breaking down piece by piece.

There is beauty in dying. In the natural course of slow decay.

When doctors ask me
why I did this to myself,
I will show them the scars
on my stomach.
I'll show them my
barren womb and
protruding rib bones.

I'll tell them that in trying to be perfect, I found what we're all really looking for.

I discovered that we're
born to die, and that
the beauty of life is
our slow descent into
the darkness of death.

you carried me home,
again,
I am inebriated on the cheapest liqueur,
you've done this before,
you've held me,
and if we had to walk you made sure,
you walked on the outside
you know me,
and my tendency to conduct
traffic in the middle of the street,

if we drove,
you,
made patterns on my back,
smoothing out my dress,
or collecting all that I have taken off,
like a jaded version of Hansel and Gretel,
you are always picking up the pieces of the crumbs i dropped,
you forever in the friend zone,
and I am continually putting on and taking off,
creating intricate dances for strangers,

and you catch me when I fall,
I am forever falling,
wandering the woods looking for danger,
or maybe just another way out,
I speak to witches,
you pray to Jesus,
I used to call him mine.
and you hold my hand,
when I began another round,
of self infliction,
another bout of self destruction,
you stay my sword,
swords that nick my wrists,
that have found home in obscure location
but can be found in any provocation.

you stay my hands,
allowing me to yell and scream,
allowing me my anger,
you know it's just misplaced,
and I am just struggling to deal,

I recreate wounds that never showed up,
play house with the demons,
as they remind me I have been beaten,
with the words of an abuser,
I felt the tainted touch of emotional vice.

but you follow me,
lovingly,
consistently,
like a chain wrapped rigid around your heart,
and I feel in foggy delay,
so intoxicated with the ghosts of things that fester,
you are the only one who keeps me safe.

And I have loved you, even when it seemed like I didn't notice,
I know you hold my hair when porcelain tattoos my skin
and I am making love to tiles on the floor.

and with any and all parts of me that are good,
they have lived and survived because of you,
living in the wasteland you have become my sun.

your grace and love carry me,
though I am not as strong yet to live for them,

you have shown unmeasurable kindness,
to me,
and my knight to beat back my darkness,
I may not say it,
I should just say it,

*I love you.Forever and always.

I realised why she walked so slow,
She never wanted to get anywhere.
And now I realise why you rush on past,
You never want to end up back where you were.

You fear that upon slowing down
The past would catch up to you,
Panting and hanging his head low,
Saying "It's taken me forever to find you!"
And you'd reply "Forever went too quickly."

If you keep walking in a straight line,
Holding up your head,
Eyes facing forward,
Arms swinging to keep up your pace,
And mind preoccupied by passing cars,
You won't end up back there.

Unless it's all a circle,
An unending loop,
And the faster you stride ahead,
The sooner you'll reach your end.