I think my skin is almost
as sensitive as I am.
The shaving cream I found in the shower
spread across my shins
gave me hives
but I guess blistering skin and the pain
along with it is
preferable to the way people would look at me
if I left my legs bare and growing hair
cause that would make me an animal, right?
And they already see me as lesser,
a thing to consume
they stare at me as if
my body is something they can take
and maybe I wouldn't mind that
all my insecurities are grounded in flesh
this form of mine
I pull apart and scrutinize it
I let the boiling shower water
burn my back and leave me red and itchy
it's better tan the bone deep cold
I live in, and even that running water
can't keep it at bay for long
I shiver without reason
I used a disgusting deodorant
meant for hormonal teenage boys
stunk up the room around me
but I'd always pick sickly sweet
over having others smell the sweat I'm covered in
my fleeting heart is always pounding
I don't know what it's like to not be afraid
do people normally have palpitations
when they wake up from a dream
they don't remember?
I think the water from my shower
could drown me
slowly fill my lungs
leave me choking on nothing
but my own thoughts
maybe I'll learn to siphon it out
a tube down my throat, scratching
or maybe I'll be coughing out water
for the rest of my life.

Dirt caked under my fingernails
my fingers working
scooping at the soil
I can feel the soul of it
hear the wind whispering
there is nothing that could keep me from this
my fingers grip at rocks
and toss them over my shoulder
into the pile of earth I have moved
I find wriggling worms
and move them too,
only gentler.
And once this hole-
this pit I have dug is big enough
to hold all of me
I step inside, my bare feet
touch the cool, wet dirt
and then I begin to close it
pull the sediment around me
cover my body in it
flatted it down until one arm is trapped
then make a spot for the other
and let it sink too.
I wish the soil would liquify
and I could just fall into
the foreverness
let my soul rest a bit
under the surface
even without this I close my eyes,
let my eyelids relieve their burning
the stars have always flashed in them
and they gutter out-
leaving everything darker than before
I have always thought that
darkness was alive
I can feel it breathing
moving towards me
I tilt my head back,
only my shoulders and up are free
eyes ******* shut
I know I could never hope to escape this
my only chance is to make it a home
become comfortable in it
never let anyone take this from me
in the dirt you can taste everything
the Sea has been a liar
since the start of eternity
its calamity was never a siren song for me
but I know what it's like
to have a being such as her sing
right in my ear
I hear the Earth's melody
and can't help but listen.
The wind weaves through the canopy
I feel my hair tickling my face
an itch I can't scratch
a wound I'm not allowed to pick.
Even boulders bear scars
even trees need a reprieve from the sunlight
but only humans could ever
dig their own grave
and willingly rest in it.

Your smile looks like
it could make flowers grow.

When you look at me,
eyes shining
I think maybe I've been in heaven
since the moment I met you.

I could watch you just exist
for yours,
listen to you breathe,
the lull of your heartbeat
filling an emptiness in me
that only you could cure.

You remind me
of everything holy
I sometimes think you are an angel,
and I can spy your halo
when you aren't paying attention
or I catch you off guard
the pink of your blush
like the rosy sunset.

I've never been one
to give myself completely
there have always been pieces of me
I kept hidden, close to the chest
but I want you to see everything.
I want you to see it all
and still love me.
I want you to know who I am,
every fault and flaw and mistake
and still choose me.

I hold onto the hope that
the world will let me keep you.
That my path does not stray
from yours, but joins it
it might be too much to ask for,
to want to have you with me forever
but I can't help it.
You are so unlike anything I've ever seen
you make me feel so
unapologetically happy
I could never stand to lose that.
Never stand to lose you.

The only God I've ever known
is the feeling of your lips on mine.

When I close my eyes
press the heels of my palms into
the sockets, push them into my skull
ever so slightly,
the phosphine images dance
even in utter darkness.
Sometimes the colors are cold-
purples splashes like deep buckling
bruises on skinned knees,
heart blue of a stormy sea,
gray ash covering a consumed funeral pyre.
Sometimes they are warm-
crimson reds flash with dull orange,
a yellow hue to soften the background,
a golden brown like the sun
beaming on slick mud.

The lids closed over my crater eyes
lips parted as I just experience
the sensation of being
nothing and everything all at once.
And when I remove my hands,
open my eyes,
I feel infinitely different
but the same.
Everything and nothing has changed
a fundamental feeling inside has gone
away but only just emerged.

I look at myself in the mirror
and do not recognize who stares back,
but have never imagined her differently.
My face doesn't quite look like mine,
like there used to be some other
consciousness inhabiting
the expanse of my skull
like a different heart
beat inside my pericardial cavity.
My fingers look too short,
my hair too long,
my nose not squishy enough
but I remember feeling the locks
of my hair between my
too short fingers,
remember scrunching my
not squishy enough nose
at smells not satisfying
I remember feeling every inch of my skin
even if it seems too warm or too bumpy
I recall placing my hands on my hips
when displeased
sticking my too wide tongue out
batting my too clumpy eyelashes.

Running my tongue over my teeth
the smooth pearl-like bone
feeling the jagged points of my canines
and fainty remembering
moving a salty, chalky pebble around my mouth
twisting it with the tip of my tongue
slightly biting on the surface
the friction of stone on teeth jarring
and I spat it out
the saliva covered pebble
striking the ground
leaving my spit to absorb into the Earth
a little peace offering
to Mother Nature.

I have always been of this universe
the material of stars coursing through
my tiny veins and capillaries.
My nerve endings
like nebula just beginning to take form
my eyes like swimming in
a galaxy of green and yellow and gray
my stomach acid like the uninhabited
surfaces of lifeless planets
outside of our solar system.
The thoughts in my head
like the ever-expansive space
us humans peer into when we
stargaze, our wonder at the falling stars
how we find the depthless dark
of infinity beautiful and terrifying.

I have watched many things burn
stared at books disappear into dust
observed as bonfires
go up in flame and smoke
but nothing will burn quite as bright
as intensely white-hot
as the hunger in my eyes.

I'm usually so good with words,
but falling for you is like
having an ocean inside of me
and only knowing the language of raindrops.
It's like waking up and falling asleep
and waking up and falling asleep
and wishing your breath was on my cheek.
It's like driving home
and craving you so deeply
I can hardly breathe without shattering my lungs.
It's like shattering my lungs
and shattering my lungs
and shattering my lungs.
It's like forgetting how to breathe
for all of the split-seconds when your name
pops up on my phone.
It's like talking to you
and never wanting to stop.
You make me want to pour myself
out of my skin to fill all of the places
you feel empty.
I'm usually so good with words,
but you drown every single one.
There are no mouths that speak this language
that are large enough to explain you.

Despite my past
soaked so heavily in red
I want my hands to wash free
of all the mistakes I've made
to have you read them in the ***** water
going down the drain
as I scrub under my nails
for the last drop of my sins.

I want you to know me,
to see all that I have done
to feel all the horror of me
and still, choose to stay.
I want you to know what you're getting
yourself in to
but love me anyway.

I'm tired of being pushed aside
by those I would sacrifice everything for
I want someone to see
all the hideous parts of me
and not be disgusted
as others have been
I want you to be committed
to loving me,
to making it work,
no matter the challenges.

I feel my walls crumbling down,
all you do is put your hands
against the outside
and they start to fall
I was so
unprepared for you
unhinged by you at first
you made yourself at home in my heart
so quickly
no alarm had time to sound
there was never an option
for me to not love you
I never could have stopped myself
from falling for you
you're a dream come true,
an angel if I ever did see one.

I would not be surprised
if I had known you
before this lifetime-
if I had loved you
in each case of my existence
this feels so right,
like I'm finally arriving home.
You are my warmth,
my safety,
my comfort,
my happiness.
My love for you will never cease
nor diminish
it will only grow stronger
as the years pass by.

And I hope for us to have
many years
time enough for me to learn
and love
and cherish
each and every inch of you
time enough for me to show you
how worthy
and beautiful
and special
you really are.

This love of ours
was built to last.

Tranquility
peacefulness
has always been hard to find
only small moments of quiet
where I can sink deep within myself
and not get pulled back out

I long for times
where I hear no man-made noises
only birds and breezes and water
moving against a shore.

I want to be able to close my eyes
and still see everything
not distracted by the eager worry
of civilization
where I can forget all my human desires
and sit in the stillness and treasure it.

I want to lose sense of time
not constantly look at my watch
to calculate how much time has gone by
I want to not feel the impending
panic of growing older.
Cherishing the time I have
has always been the goal
instead of fretting over time lost.

I wish for the earth to just
swallow me sometimes
to lay at peace with myself and the soil
to just listen and hear the
world breathing.

Maybe the worms and
hermit ***** got it right
all we really need is
someplace to be ourselves.
Dig through the ground
in search of that place
try every shell
in search of that place.

I have always been
in search of that place
and I really just
want to find it soon.