& at that moment
I envied the samples
on the store counter
because they were
the ones that were
*free

this is where we danced,
me too afraid to touch,
you bursting to try,

and in a crowd of people I look for your hair,
set fire to your insides,
and I am forever attracted to the flame,

caught in the embrace of smoky lovers,
you cross your heart,
speaking empty promises,
bargaining for something to burn,
you set fire to your insides,
you want to be able to feel,
you scratch at the raw parts,
you hope to erase the pain,
but all you are is constantly bleeding,
not accepting the grace of my rain,

I set fire to me insides,
and I scratch at old wounds,
trying to heal,
I rub the raw parts,
and poke parts left damaged,
wondering when I'll be able to feel.

prelude
5 pages were blank the 6th written on...  
you wrote:                                                           ­                                                                 ­                                        *I love you.

You said that you didn't want to change are friendship
but you didn't think you could hide it anymore.
it was a summer night you held my hand,
you lead me to the tent you pitched in your back yard,
and i thought i could lay there, hidden in a tent with your arms wrapped around my waist,
but i wanted you to prove it,
maybe i just wanted to feel it,
you said, "ashley, breathe"
and your fingers found a way to cradle my head,
and to pull down the wall i peek through,
and your pink lips touched mine,
and i wonder sometimes if you would do it now,
how would i react or would i have set sail south
for you were always being kissed by the sun,
and I don't talk about it,
no body knows the places we traveled to,

And I find it here in the ashes,
as I’d follow your down to the earth,
I’d hear your breath, I feel the dirt,
and mosquito lands on me,
your lips met mine,
and I replay it over and over time.
And time is what I have given you.

i wanna tell someone about you,
the ghost of my summer girl,
always finds me sipping on the melancholy,
and dancing with the devils of chaos and confusion,

we don't talk.
we don't speak.
i wonder if you still seek for things you'd have to sneak,
in a tent in your own back yard.

i can't talk about you,
they haven't been around to listen,
but i still think of you.

And if we’d go back there and I couldn’t change this separation,
I know though the places I would have traveled,
I wear the skirts,
you fold the sheets,
and I miss the hands holding my waist.

you call it love and it’s become my torture.