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.

You belong somewhere wholly different-
somewhere tranquil and calm

somewhere
where the lights aren't harsh
where the breeze is cool and warm
you belong where the air
tastes fresh and clean,
where mountain tops
break against the sunrise
and your hands can touch
all the softness of nature.

Where green is the color of everything
and your laugh mixes with birdsong
where you smile and a beam
of sunlight hits your face
and lights and warms you
where you know only love
and peace and happiness.

Where there is no fear,
no concept of pain
where every color is brighter,
every song is chillingly sung
and every day is good.

You belong to
the earth and her nature,
you belong to the ridges and peaks
and the branches of trees,
you belong to soft mossy ground
and sun-warmed pebbles,
you belong to everything beautiful
you belong to everything beautiful.

Ash floats around me
my hands caked in soot
the burnt match between my fingers.

Remnants of flames burning in my eyes,
smoldering rubble
smells of smoke and destruction.

I lift the match to my mouth
touch the tip to my tongue
the salty taste worth the raging fires of my sins.

My face has always been malleable
a canvas of clay the nearest set of
hands could mold into whatever
they wanted.
It was soft and pliable,
changing with pinches and plucks
at my skin.
A girl of many faces,
never seeing her reflection the same
never knowing who she was
without the influence of others.
I don't know who you want me to be.

I don't know how to look past
all of the false layers of me
my face has been remade so many times
I can't even see what the original color was
or if there even was one.
I wonder if you have been shaping me
my whole life.
Always guiding and changing
what made up me
a hand on my back, steering.
Did you even look at first
to see what you were destroying?
Did you deem my real skin unworthy
of your time and energy?
Did you not like what you saw?

I want to hear you admit
to your mistakes.
I want your hands to bleed with
all the paint you've covered me in.
I want your mind to picture
everything you took from me
every impulse and dream and curiosity
you pushed out of my reach.
I want you to know
that I see where your hands have been
your fingerprints are all over me
my soul tainted with the essence of you
you took me from myself
you ruined me.

I was a masterpiece before you even
picked up the paintbrush.

There's something special about
letting someone see you.
Really see you.

Your birthmarks and scars
your weird moles and skin bunches
your heart and soul and worries
and beliefs.

I could be completely naked
and you wouldn't know a thing about me
but to see my body and my soul
is utter knowledge of me.

I would like to
have you see all that my body is
and holds.
I want to show you how
my thighs have stretch marks.
and my shoulder blades pop out.
I want you to know the way I say
the simplest phrases
and how my tongue gets twisted
when I tell you how I feel.

I want to bestow upon you
the intimacy of showing myself.

Trigger Warning: self-harm, blood, death, suicide
These are not monsters.
There are no monsters here.
These feel like love,
and when they creep inside you
it's like something once missing
is finally coming home.
How could a monster make such
pretty pictures?
Pretty pictures,
pretty ****** pictures,
they look like everything
that is in this universe is bleeding,
like rivers of red
and pumping veins
and all I've thought about for the past three days
is my own blood leaking from my wrists
and these monsters (not monsters)
can make you feel it too.

You'll learn to make jokes about why
there's a scratch on your thigh
and why you won't be caught dead
in anything but head-to-toe clothing.
Lifting the perfectly wrapped blades
with delicate red-stained fingers
to hesitant perfect skin
and when the jokes get too cumbersome,
and feel too much like a cry for help,
like speaking up, like letting go,
learn to put an end to words,
forget what speaking is and
by the end of 6th grade
you'll know every spot in your house
where no one will look for you
blood-dripping stash.

The monsters (not monsters)
will share their secrets.
You'll learn that crayon-colored pencil sharpeners,
when applied pressure turn into a weapon
and can be easily hidden in a box of mints
the time every night when you receed into your mind
feels like a nightmare and a daydream
and you can slip
for only the cost of the rest of your life spent
worshipping
the biting feeling of metal in skin
searching up picture and picture
and dead girl and picture
you, too, can spend the rest of the day
smelling of blood leaking down
your wrists.

Go, they'll say,
searching with sure hands, hastily covered wrists-
memorize the lines of your veins
and all the lies you could tell
spend hours in the bathroom
counting cuts
fifty
one hundred
two hundred
three.
Suddenly your skin swells and the blood bleeds
the color of spilled wine
you will learn to avoid everyone
because people mean questions
you will spend your birthday
fantasizing about burying
your blades into your throat
until your heart stops.

The not-monsters
will feed you your first hospitalization,
and your second, and your seventh.
They will leave your once peaceful skin
covered in a mass of scars,
just for you.

And when your life gets too weak,
and your mind starts to crumble,
but where blades break skin
galaxies will implode.
An entire universe will force
itself from your wounds
pushing flesh and veins out of your way
and you'll faint
but you'll be happy
because at least you're not numb
you'll decompose
until you cannot be differentiated
from all the skeletons that live in your closet.
Don't you wish you could die
don't you wish you could have that control
don't you wish you could make your dad cry
because he just doesn't get why you'd do this
you don't get why you do this
you're smart but you just googled
how many ounces of blood can you lose
before you pass out
the horrible girls
horrible bleeding girls
horrible dying girls
horrible dead girls
the parasite can be restrained but not destroyed.
But no matter.
It's a beautiful thing to be made of scars
the picture of your ****** arms in the bathroom
was worth it.

You are more
artfully created
than any poem
I could ever write.
My words,
lines,
stanzas-
they're no match for
your sheer beauty.

I see your face
and can't help but smile
your voice gives me
chills all down my spine.
Your laugh can cure
any sorrow I have.

There is no limit
to what I love about you.
My art written about you
will never fully capture
the wonder that you are.

I constantly get lost
in the ways you
carry love and light;
you hold so much goodness in your being.

It is so easy for me to love you,
it frightens you.
I've never wanted anything
as much as I want you.
The question is no longer,
"How do I love you?"
it has become
"How could I ever stop?"

I laugh harder with you
I feel more myself
I trust you with me,
the real me.
There is my heart,
and there is you,
and I'm not sure
there is a difference.

You are my love story,
I write you into everything I do,
everything I see,
everything I touch,
and everything I dream.
You are the words that fill my pages.

There is nothing
I wouldn't give you
nothing I wouldn't
do for you
nothing I don't
love about you.

Your flaws only make you
more perfect.
My love for you
is ever-expanding
never-ending.

I could fill this world
with poems for you
and even then
they still wouldn't be enough.
You are everything.
Everything.

Her eyes are full of stars
she might have even taken them
right our of the sky.
When I look into them
I see endless swirls of
galaxies and universes
colliding and shaping and molding
to fit into the expanse of her irises.

Her freckles are constellations
splayed across her nose and cheeks
and I could trace Orion,
Sagittarius,
Ursa Major
on her skin.

Her body is made from
stardust.
She's a composite of stars
and planets
and asteroids.
She's heavenly,
otherwordly
one in a billion.
I will never find someone like her
again
and I hope I never have to look.

If she,
this girl made of outer space,
leaves my life,
the night sky will be a blank
expanse
void of all its light
never to twinkle again with
gaseous stars
never to feel the pull of
planets and solar systems
never to experience a shower
of shooting stars.

I will never look up
at the sky
in wonder at the Milky Way
and all that is beyond it
if she isn't there.

She is the utmost center
of everything
the beginning and end to all.
She is a creator and destroyer
and I would rather her break my heart
than never have met her.
She is a goddess,
a living breathing miracle.
She is everything I want and need,
everything I am looking for.

I would lose my life before
losing her
I would fall on my knees
and give up everything I am
if she only asked.
I would be glad to lose everything
if only to keep her.

She is my salvation,
my every thought.
She is my future
I wouldn't want one without her.

She's made from outer space,
this girl I love.
I only hope
I am worthy enough
to deserve her.

There's always a tipping point,
a space where you reside
when the balance is nearly equal,
but not quite.
You're on the edge of the blade,
and all it would take
was a whisper of a breeze
to tip the scale to one side.

There are so many things
that are constantly slipping
from my fingers.
As much as I reach
and lunge
and grab for them,
they always manage to escape me.

Even when I think things
are going well,
the slightest change
movement
of anything
can shake me to my core.

An earthquake
is ripping through my world
and I'm not sure if I can
hang on long enough
to make it.

There's an emptiness inside me
that hasn't ever been filled
and I have always ignored it
pushed it back
starved that wanting in me.

There are things that
I can't think about
truths about me and my life
that would utterly break me
if I looked too close.
I have to keep them sealed
keep those things
away.
They keep surfacing
keep bubbling up
trying to be seen.
Flinching will mean
acknowledging them
but their noise is nearly unbearable.

I needed you
to have more faith in me
to believe in me
more than I did.
I never thought I was good enough
never thought I was worthy
but I always tried.
I always tried my hardest
to be what I should
to do what you wanted.

It was never enough.
Nothing was enough.
Your disappointment
is cracking me apart
your judgement
and criticism
is breaking me.
I know the truth, and I can't help but wish
I had never learned it.
I always thought that honesty
was everything
but I almost would have rather
you lied.

I can't stand this.
Being around you
having to pretend that
I don't know.
That I'm fine.
I can't talk to you
I can't trust you
I can't do anything.

If I acknowledge this pain
will it take away my last shred of resolve?
Will it shatter me into a million pieces
incapable of being picked up
and put back together?
Will I learn and grow from the truth?

I'm not sure I'm willing to find out.

Trigger Warning* depictions of ****** assault

Beach sands
peeling off a swimsuit
a wet slap
not quite drenched to the bone
yet still a burden
how it sits heavy on the tongue
a humid storm
inside you
heaviness in the prison of my ******
I am trying to pull up my *******
after my friend ***** me
in December
and I'm thinking of how everyone I love
has once hurt me
'moist' is the sound
of his fingers slipping inside me
I am closing my eyes
as the cotton of his shirt clings to my bare legs
and I am thinking that all the wetness must have
teeth
especially the wetness that grows within
and spills out
or chews its way through the skin
and falls onto another's
the night I was *****
everyone laughed
until the walls were moist
until it rained indoors
I say moist
and first, think about two naked bodies
the sound their skin makes
when I try to fight him off
underneath a hungry moon
in a house of warm heat
I saw moist
and think of his tongue against me
the bullet in his brain as I curse him
on a cold December night
the room
my *******
a dark red
I say moist
as in
my own blood spilling in my white ******* moist
or
his fingers moist as he pounded into me
so hard I bled
or my eyes moist when
I told my Momma what that boy had done to me
it felt like winter for ten years.

My words are a guillotine
and you willfully put your head
underneath it.
I know ******* you.
It'd be so easy.
A simple word here
a phrase there
and I'd destroy you.
Leave you doubting yourself
doubting me
and feeling guilty for it.

My hands touch you
make you plead for more.
I want to freeze sometimes
to just stop.
Maybe even to leave.
I want to leave your wondering
what you did wrong.
I want to break your heart.
Because this is what I do.
I leave things, people,
in pieces.

Only once in a blue moon
do I wish to destroy
to break
to shatter.

Sometimes,
it's not you I want to hurt
it's me.
I want to destroy myself
from the inside out.
That includes hurting you
beyond repair.
If I make you hate me
I'll have no reason not to hate myself.

You know when you're holding
something precious
like life in your hands
say
a frog
and you have the fleeting thought
to crush it between your fingers?
That's what it feels like.

That's what this feelng is,
isn't it?
Just a small thing
destined to go away.
I don't realy
wholeheartedly want to hurt you
or anyone or anything
really
I don't.

I just want to know
what you'd say
what you'd do
if I could ever make you cry
If I could completely break you.

Part of me
knows how wrong this is
how I shouldn't be wonderng about this
that wanting to **** something
or destroy it's spirit or heart
probably makes me a sociopath
but I'm not sure if I care.

I want to be compared
to a black hole.
I want to make everyone hate me
see how ugly I really am.

I want you to wish you'd never met me.

Self-destruction is a terrible thing,
isn't it?
When you've got nothing left
and you're all on your own
you have no means to go on.

I wish I didn't have you by my side,
but then again,
I never want you to leave.

I wish to God I could be taken
from this earth
but I want to stay with you forever.

Baby tell me
I'm okay.
That I'm not insane.
That you'll love me no matter what.
Because I'm scared of what I'm capable of.

I'm scared of hurting you
purposely or otherwise.

This guillotine
doesn't want your head
to be there.
It wishes you would move,
save yourself.
Pull away.

But you don't.
You stay in the blades path.
And as it goes down
so does my heart.

I wasn't created to destroy.

I must have loved you
in another life
because when I see you
when I hear you
when I hold you
it feels like coming home.
I only feel like myself around you.
When my hand is in yours
it's familiar and safe,
like I've known your soul
since the beginning of time,
through every life I've lived
and all the lives I have yet to experience.
Maybe that's why
my love for you
is infinite.

My love for you just can't
be put into words.
Words are just letters
scrambling to fall into place
to tell a story
but your laugh is already
an adventure through
galaxies undiscovered.
Your eyes are oceans
filled with treasures
from years of shipwrecks
and heartache.
Your heart, pounding
120 beats per minute:
we slowly edge closer,
our hands tingling as we touch
and the energy courses through us,
sing melodies in a language
only we know.
Words are just letters
trying to become
something beautiful
but you are already
more beautiful
than any letter could have hoped
to be.

Physical intimacy has its limits,
you know.
I can only learn so much from
pushing into each others mouths,
from grasping hands,
sharp breaths.
I don't care about the intimacy.

I care about
holding you
seeing what it would be like
to hold your hand.
I want you to want me too,
in every way possible.
I want to be the reason you smile
until your cheeks hurt.
I want to spend as many moments
as possible with you.

I don't care about ***.
I just want your mouth on mine
for every goodnight,
good morning,
goodbye,
hello
kiss.
I want you in the most
innocent, purest way.

When I was little
I was told that rain
was the tears of angels.
How much pain must they be in
to create a storm such as this?
The lightning their sobs,
thunder their raging breaths,
hot tears turned cold as they fall to the ground
down on their knees
eyes ******* shut
throat burning as they wail.
What must have happened
to those perfect,
beautiful creatures?
Were they staring down at the world
watching as we
pillage and ****
****** and steal
lie and cheat?
Listening to us scream
in anger
or pain
or frustration?
Tuning in to the thoughts
of our broken youth
hearing them hate
and hurt themselves
till they're covered in scars
that will never fade?
The hurricane never waves
flood rising crashing like ocean waves
wind torturing nature around it.
The trees creak and sway
as the angels mourn.
The world around them
finally reflects the conflictions
in their heads.

I didn't use to believe in luck,
I even thought myself perpetually
unlucky
but now I see
that the universe has done me a
kindness by having us meet
I only hope that
their generosity would continue
to help me in my endeavor.

And if it doesn't,
then I will scour the ground
for every four-leaf clover
I will race to the bottom of every rainbow
for its *** of gold.
I will do everything I can
to stay lucky
so I might be able to keep you.

I worry that, without my luck,
I will not deserve you
or that the universe is using you
as a way to prove to me
I am not worthy
of all that I seek.

I always wished
that my hands could be as gentle
as the ones I watched around me.

Elegant and musical,
the hands of those I spent time with
seemed to glide over whatever
they touched.
They were never aggressive
never snatching.

They wanted nothing,
only plucked flowers gracefully
and lifted glasses of lemonade.

They never had to hold fast
to anything
never worried about
the precious things
being taken from them.

My hands have always been
rough and calloused
prepared to lash out
to preserve me and my life.
They are fighting hands,
grabbing hands,
loving hands.

They are made to last
to persevere.

My hands have been exactly what
I needed them to be
my wistful wishes of gentleness
were just that:
wishes of someone who wanted
something different for herself.

But my hands have aided me
like none other,
and I would not exchange them
or change them for anything.

The sparrow has crossed my path
and I hope she'll stay
longer than a fleeting moment
so I may appreciate her beauty.

She came to me
as most Texas birds do
when you're quiet and alone.
But she was different, I'm sure.

She was vibrant,
not at all the dusty hues of the others
I had come to know.
She was bright and intricate.

The sparrow was free to roam
she was the epitome of freedom
and yet she chose to stay
singing by my side.

And she could have picked anyone,
that little yellow sparrow.
But she flew and sang around me
always appearing again.

I couldn't help but feel
that as quick
as she had appeared
she would leave again.

But the sparrow sang
and in her song
assured me
that she would do no such thing.

She was mesmerized
by me.
You can fly, and yet chose not to,
she said. Why is that?

You are as much a bird as I am,
she told me.
All you have to do
is let go.

I considered her words carefully
I had never flown before,
never thought that I could.
But for her, I did.

Fingers numb with cold
the stars winking above
I kissed you
and tasted juicy Georgia peaches,
flushed pink like your cheeks
and sweet as anything.
The succulent taste coated my tongue
and I wanted more.
I felt you hesitate when I pulled you closer
but I kept my lips soft and exploring
so as to not scare you away.
My fingers wound into the curls
against your warm scalp.
They moved along
grasping at the little ringlets at the nape
of your neck
and you shivered.
You pulled away,
and buried your face into my neck.
Your breath against my skin
reminded me of
the warm Florida coast,
the sun radiant and bright
and the breezes humid.
I felt your heart beat
against me as the lull of the tide,
and as you blinked
your eyelashes
fluttered on my skin
like wind-kicked sand.

This could be the moment,
I thought.
This could be the moment
I fall in love.

Time should mean more to me,
I know.
I shouldn't write about what I've barely
come to understand,
but you, my love,
make words so easy
music so sweet.

Chivalry isn't exactly dead, not yet
and I can't help but think about
properly courting you,
stealing kisses when our escort isn't
paying attention
or writing you disgustingly cheesy love letters
that sound nothing like me.

Despite the short time
I've known you,
I catch myself thinking
about what it might be like.
If the world would be so kind
if Fate wouldn't intervene
if I could get to keep you.
My own little slice of paradise,
of heaven.

I must confess I'm not much of a
believer in what I can't see or feel
but you
pop questions into my head
abut even that.
How can there not be
something inherently pure and good
when you're with me?
How can I not believe
that we were meant for something more
when you feel so right?

Our lives have not been fair,
this I know.
But I think my hardship
might have been worth it
if they brought me to you.

My Grandmother's perfume
was always as sweet as the fruit
she loved to share with me
its rinds thrown from the deck.
We watched as the deer came out
to feast on the skins.

Her perfume came
in beautiful crystal
and her collection spread
all over the bathroom.
She hummed as she got ready
her song beautiful like the hummingbirds
we would fill a feeder full of nectar for.
And as we ate at the small wooden table,
she would whisper,
"Look, my love! Our friends have arrived."
and the hummingbirds would sip from the feeder.
I always felt that they were her kin,
those hummingbirds.
But it would not be a stretch
for my Nana to be blood
with all the beautiful things.

She showed me how
to pluck a honeysuckle flower
and extract the nectar carefully
so I would taste a drop.
In the springtime,
butterflies would flock to that bush,
and we watched from a distance.

She taught me
where the daddy-longlegs liked to nest
and reminded me that they
were harmless.
I picked the wildflowers for her
and she would place the little arrangments
in water on the table.

My Nana would make me coffee
so sweet I could barely drink it
but I did
because the sweetness was just as sweet
as her.

I loved spending time with her,
even if it was just a phone call.
The number 2 pad on my mom's
ugly orange phone
was my Nana's speed dial.
I called her every day.
Every day.
She would light up when
she heard my voice
and I would chatter on about
anything and everything I could think of.

I still remember
the songs she used to sing to me
when it was time for bed
and I was wide awake.
"I love you,
a bushel and a peck.
A hug around the neck,
and a barrel and a heap
and I'm talking in my sleep
about you."

My Nana
doesn't remember the words now
but as long as I have
a voice to sing with,
I will sing for her.
As long as I have hands,
I will write for her.
And as long as I have a heart,
I will love her.
Even after the day,
she doesn't remember me.
Even after the day
she doesn't see my face
and know who I am.
Even after the day
she doesn't know she ever loved me.

The sky is old, it is tired.
It is aching.

The sky is bruised.
It is blackest blue and deepest blood purple.
It is tearing and writhing and mashing.
It is molded by someone
who knows not of their own power for desire.

It is being destroyed and created at the same time,
it is being pushed and pulled and grabbed
by hands who have known little of gentleness
and have been overcome by violence
but are trying to be soothing.

Hands made for wielding swords
steadfast give up when attempting to weave flowers together.

But he has not given up.

He is immobilized-
lost in his own despair and pain
as he tries to create.
He is searching through things he doesn't quite understand
searching through himself
and his own power he has left untapped for many a year.

He is trying-
hoping to help build a world
where love knows no bounds
and hate is only as strong as those
feeble hearts who use it.

The End of Time has already passed,
and no one can see past it
no one knows whether he will succeed.
But they do know
that he will continue to try
to press on
until the last whisper of his soul is gone from this world.

I am waiting for the day
when we can all celebrate
as one people
united behind
he who tore the sky
and lifted it up again,
anew.

If you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss will also gaze into you. I know this to be true, even if the abyss is not necessarily anything outside myself. The abyss is simply, The Abyss. It is not within me or without me, it is just being. And I do gaze into it. I don't really take this to mean that I will become like my hates or enemies, as I believe that I have always been what I hate- my own worst enemy. I take this to say that The Abyss, for however long I look into it, also looks into me. It leaves marks on my soul; deep gouges made with stained black talons. The Abyss is many things, and also nothing at the same time. It is darkness, that is a given, it is also The End. It is The Apocalypse, it is The End of Time. The Abyss is the complete-stop-of-everything. Some people even believe that the surging water-deep of a literal abyss is Hell itself, though I think I know better. The Abyss is not Hell, because when your soul is released from your vessel, and you of course have committed sin, you do not go to The Abyss. Your soul does not forever reside in the Nothingness of The Abyss, your soul does not belong to it unless it belongs to you. Even so, after looking into The Abyss for a long period of time, it is hard to shake the feeling of its eyes on you. It can linger for days, and the restless, dreamless state that those eyes leave you in is hard to leave behind. As someone who is constantly staring into The Abyss, I find that it never quite leaves me. It's almost as if The Abyss has left some part of it inside me, within my very being. I can't hope to root it out without never seeing into The Abyss ever again, and I don't imagine that will happen any time soon. The Abyss has been a... comfort to me. The promise of Nothingness, of simply Not Being, has always appealed to me. This existence of mine has not been an easy one, but it has been growing on me. Even with the promise of Nothingness, I think that I will try and stay Existing for as long as I can. Existing has its perks of course. I get to think and feel and experience, and part of that Feeling is Love, which I believe may be the most important one of all. What is there, without Love?

That, I believe, is what The Abyss actually is. Lack of Love.

Hiding in my stomach
where no one can find her
is a beast.

She's a shapeshifter, this monster.
Sometimes her skin is leathery
and membranous,
and wings stretch where her arms used to be.

Sometimes she's a mass of fur and
horns and talons.
Sometimes she's just a fog of darkness
leaking into the world.

But she never lets me forget
that she's there.
When I look into the mirror, I see her.
I'll touch my face
and find it utterly human,
and yet my reflection is a leviathan.
A demon.
She used to terrify me,
make me sweat and shake from fear.

But I've come to accept
that this is what I am.
A monster
whose teeth are stained with blood
of mine and others.
I can never brush them clean.

As I inspected the witch's cottage,
my gaze fell upon a curious looking
jar on a shelf.
It was full of eyes.

The witch noticed, or sensed,
my discomfort
and simply said,
"The eyes contain the soul."

For the rest of the day,
I sat on the creaking floor
and examined each eye.
They appeared to be glass,
but I knew that was likely a rouse.

So, with kitchen cleaning gloves
I fished the next eye out of
the Mason jar and lifted it up to my own.

It was about as large as the others,
but molten honey colored,
and the iris took up so much space,
while the pupil was very small.
I turned to the witch, the eye still in hand.

"What kind of eye is this?" I asked,
showing the eye to her.
She pried it out of my grasp and felt
all over it, her eyes closed.

"It belonged to an elephant." she said,
handing it back to me.
Upon seeing the look on my face, she clarified,
"It died of natural causes, and I never ask for them.
They find their way to me."

I considered this.
"What other kind of eyes do you have?"
The witch smiled, and led me into another room,
full of jars on shelves.
This time they were organized, labeled with
the name of the creature.

Mouth open in awe,
I looked around the room in wonder.
The eyes ranged from human,
to elephant, to squid.
There were so many different sizes
and colors.
The labels told me the creature,
and some of them I had never heard of.

"Do they really hold the soul?"
The witch nodded.

"Each of these eyes belonged to a different living being,
who is now gone.
Their eyes, or souls, rather
find their way to me.
I keep them safe until the soul is ready
to be used in a vessel again."

I frowned.
"So, one day, all these will be gone?"
She nodded again.

"And a new set will take its place."
The witch patted the top of my head
with her weathered hand.
"Someday, you'll be the one to watch over
the souls.
It'll be up to you
to keep them away from harm."

Carefully, I put the elephant's eye
in the jar and ******* the lid closed.

Now I wait for my turn
to keep the souls safe.

He appeared to me in a dream.
Everything-
the lights
the darks
the undefined space in which we resided-
was being eaten.
He devoured worlds.
Planets, galaxies, universes
were being ****** into him
by nothing other than his seer will.
He was completely incredescent.
I could not reach him,
could not touch his radiance.
All I was able to do was watch
my eyes glued to him
as everything I knew
went down his throat
with a bob of his Adam's apple.

And when I awoke,
all I could think about
was that I had to know him.
I had to know this young man
who gleefully
consumed.

I wonder what it all tastes like.
If my dream matter was tangy and sweet
if the wishes of mine he ate were bitter
if the stars taste like anything you could describe with human words.

Maybe one day,
I'll see him again
and he'll indulge me
in the taste of everything.

Most believe
that not knowing
will drive you mad.
But really
learning the truth
can make you just as crazy.

It's a different kind of psychotic, yes.
But insane nonetheless.

There are secrets
secrets to this world
that a meager human mind
should not learn
should not have to hold.

Sometimes those fiendly deities slip up.
They leave a door open
a window cracked
and suddenly!
a human knows too much.

There are consequences, of course.
The natural order will always be restored,
in due time.
But alas, it is not the clumsy god who is punished,
no, if only it worked that way.
No, as it has been since humans
first walked,
the poor mortal man must be punished
for learning
listening when he ought not to.

And that's where the madness of knowing
comes in.
As punishment for the deities' wrongdoings.
The natural order is restored by erasing the man's
sanity.
And once it is gone,
it is impossible to retrieve.

So be careful, little mortal,
when you wish in the well for infinite knowledge,
you never know what mischievous god
may be listening.

My life used to be full of life.
It tasted like dried apricot
and banana chips.
It smelled like a sun-warmed dog
and sunflowers.
It felt like cool water on sun-baked skin
and rain sizzling against asphalt.

And it struck me as beautiful
years later
when I'd spent so much time in the dark.
I never realized
the exact moment
when my skies became so dark and menacing.
I can't pinpoint the year
in which I forgot what lives in the light.

You tell me to get past the dark
to work through it
but who would I be without it?
Baby, I may have grown up in darkness,
but I am the most beautiful ******* star in the sky
you just need a little darkness to see it.

There's a dull drumming
a music to all things
and sometimes it seems like I'm the only one who
can hear the rhythm.
Like how the lights radiate vibrato violins
and the lawnmower outside
sings opera.
Or how the crickets at night,
with their apparent music
chirp a lullaby for the Wild Things.

The Wild Things
aren't strictly monsters
made of hoof and horn,
but sometimes they are children
with the soul of a wild horse
or a mountain lion.
Sometimes they are women
who dreams have never been
stuck in twilight.
Sometimes they are men
who wish for something more.

Sometimes they are creatures
with no body. Just a soul incarnated as a central being.
Sometimes the Wild Things aren't really things at all,
but songs and stories told to babes
who wander too far from their mothers
sometimes they are just animals
ones we can't see nor hear nor smell.
Ones we can only imagine in our wildest,
most fruitful dreams.

The Wild Things,
they don't have one place where they all go,
like the stories foretold.
Instead, they have many safe places
lairs and hideaways and crypts and haunts
all around us. Sometimes,
those places
are within us.

The music of the Wild Things.
Not everyone can hear.
Only other Wild Things can listen to it.
And as such,
I have forgotten my duties as a young woman
on an earth full of human pests
and resumed my life as a Wild Thing
with my hideaway as
underneath the clothes in my closet.
I could build a tunnel down through the ground
and connect my crypt
with those of the other Wild Things
so that we may dance and sing our songs together
in a cave beneath the world.

My lovers have always been like cough drops.
Sweet, soothing, addicting even,
but never enough to solve the problem.
Never enough to clear my damaged throat.

And I don't know if you'll be any different.
From how we started,
it seemed as if I was in for another dose of
acesulfame potassium,
but there's something about you.
That makes me think
you'll be more like a cigarette.

Instead of sweet,
you'll be bitter.
But you'll make me woozy at my first drag,
and mellowed out for the duration.
You'll make my otherwise shaky personality
smooth.
But like rain in the summer,
you won't last long.
At least, I don't think.

There's also something about you
that makes me
want to tell you everything.
You're like a priest,
and I'm in the confessional.
I wouldn't confess my sins to anyone,
but you...
I just might.

What is it about you, huh?
Is it your boyish charm?
Your people skills?
Or is it something more menacing?
Maybe you're a psychopath
who's been studying me and my tells
to see how to get me to open up.
Maybe you're a serial killer and I'm your next victim.

I won't lie, I don't trust easy.
Maybe you're a perfectly good person,
and I just fell in love abnormally quick.
Maybe you really do love me.
But there's something about you I don't trust.

Something about you
that makes me want to run
and never look back.
You have something of a record when it comes
to girls' hearts,
and I'm not so naive as to forget
what you did to Maru,
but I can see
why they forgot to warn me
about you.

It's almost as if
you cleaned their mind
of all the atrocities you've committed.
But I won't be so easily tricked.

I won't forget what you've done.
I won't lie and say I don't love you,
because I do.
I love you with my whole heart.
But, I will not let my guard down.
I will not let you so close
you will never break my heart.
'Cause baby, you ain't no cough drop.
You're a black mamba
in the chicken's coop.

But darling, I'm the farmer
with the gun to your slick little head,
finger on the trigger,
ready to fire.

Do don't underestimate me.
Don'y you dare underestimate me.
'Cause I'm a **** assassin with my aim.
And I'm not gonna miss.
So tread lightly, little snake.
Don't bite my chickens
or swallow the eggs
and I won't shoot.

There's nothing quite like
the jumbling, tumbling feeling
of butterflies underneath my skin
whenever we talk.
The creeping blush that radiates my face and ears
my giggles and words stumble out of mouth
and I can hardly contain myself
whenever I see your face.

Something about you
makes my heart race and knees weak.
If you ever brushed your fingertips
against mine
I might implode from happiness
and get my giddy guts everywhere.
Your existence, just the fact that you're alive
makes my soul sing.

A simple thought straying from the rest
will easily find you and not let go.
One moment I'll be taking notes in class
and another I'll be staring off into space
smiling like an idiot because I couldn't keep my mind off you.
My soul sings a lovely little song when I think of you
it's full of hauntingly beautiful melodies made in major
the song is continuously stuck in my head.

Last night, I nearly burst into flames.
Your sweet words doused me in gasoline,
the liquid soothing and warm
and I know if I had gone aflame,
I would not have burned.
The flames of infatuation didn't completely evade me
as our conversation lead into twilight
I hope pillow talk is not all that's fated for us.