I am the deceiving
I am the hurting one
I am the monster of pain

I will lick you softly
With my acid laced tounge

I will eat you from head to toe
You won't feel the same
When I'm done with you

Vicarious in ways
Pealing your skin back
Only to pour salt in your wounds

As I gently scrape the retinas of your eyes with my jagged razor blade

I see your passionate blood
Run down my fingers

You'll feel my hand inside your chest
Pumping your heart

Holding you up with a noose to keep you alive.

As your face goes pale and your lips turn blue.

I've only kept you alive to say
I once loved you

If guilt and mistakes are at stake
And you're stuck in a rut that's deep with door closed shut
I urge you to break open windows and take, take what you know
And put it in a skill
Use your strength and your will
For only you, this soil, can till
I want you to walk boardwalks and talk to crowds
Convey your heart and speak out loud
To draw and write the things you feel
For though it is not original, or perhaps good enough to show others
You've given yourself something that is real

If the past clings to your ankles and you can't shake it's shackles
Take the rings of iron bound to your feet and break the bindings
The past will not last in your mind anyhow and how you know that you're free
Is when you are able to stand and accept life's steep, and harsh fee
And move and go and know and live and be happy, regardless of it's toll
And if you can do this than you have done more than all the rest who feel best
And you have beaten the ultimate test
For happiness comes sparingly in short bursts
And if you're simply warily comparing the outcomes of actions
Then you are not alive, and the beauty will pass you by
and the chance for happiness will digress and leave you alone

If you can hear then you listen to songs, and words
the footsteps the heartbeats, the wind in the tree's and it's birds

If you can see then you look at the art on the walls that apart from yourself
Can still bring to you some beauty in heart
You look at the bridges in Vermont that in the orange flush fall
Paint the world their colors as they fall from tree's that stand tall

And you like that tree should stand in the wind and not bend to the fate
For when you move with the wind you'll find that happiness does not wait

So as you stare from the window in the stone house you have built
As the flowers you brought from outside are gone, or start to wilt
And you see the sunshine line the paths that you know you should walk
And the people who stand in bands with whom you know you should talk
I hope that the cold of the stone which for years you have known
Serves reminder to find the courage to walk through the door which you abhor
And find the life and light and peace that I know the world for you, has in store.

you are endless wordplay recorded over a blank coffeeshop soundtrack. your lips throw out pun after pun, but your throat hums to the ghost of a song you swore you didn't listen to.

you are smiles across the breakfast table, blinking too-little sleep from your too-bright eyes, talking too loudly about how you don't need rest when you can get drunk on life. i laugh quietly. the dark circles give you away, my dear.

you are long nights and warm blankets and repeating "we should go to bed" until it sounds like a joke. it is hard to fall asleep when the blood is singing in my veins and my dreams are coming true right in front of me.

you are soft corners and sharp edges, too strong to stand firm and too fragile to break. your footsteps falter and even your confidence has cracks, but i'll admit it's comforting to know that you're just as scared as i am sometimes.

you are fast-talking and over-explaining, and you never do anything halfheartedly so you are also lying-too-easily. but it's okay i never wanted the truth anyway, i hated how it dimmed the memories and haunted the empty space on my mattress. i like how that space is taken up by the curve of your body instead.

you are called a paradox, white wolf or black sheep, predator and prey at odds and at peace. and you are called downward-flowing, like the way i am falling faster and harder for you. then again, maybe i like metaphors too much. maybe your name is just a name. maybe it's the most beautiful sound i've ever heard.
but i call you love because you are the only reason i have any inkling of what it means.

I can never ask you to stay, when all you want is to leave

The numbness is taking over again
I don't like the way it "feels"
But in between the desolate expanse
There is only solitary bouts of intense torment
Burning like a supernova
Only to be abruptly replaced by the numbness once more

Have you ever loved someone so much?

Where every moment you spend without their arms wrapped around your waist is so incredibly painful, you think it’s slowly killing you?

Where you long every second for that certain trio of words to be sent your way, on the lisps of the wind?

“I love you.”

And

“I miss you”

Were trios that I did not catch that afternoon. I’m sure you sent them, but not to me.

Instead, what did I get?

“You will never be half the person that she is.”

I read that, and instantly I wanted to cry. I felt defeated, crushed, broken down. Ashamed, upset, and alone.

You said you weren’t thinking, that it was an accident, that you didn’t mean it.
But if you sent it, you thought it.

And that’s enough for me.

You tried to take it back, and believe me I wish you had succeeded.

But you didn’t, and you left me for wanting.

Because when that was over, when you said the only ten words I never would have expected to come out of your mouth, I was done.

Done what?

I was done fighting.  Fighting off bad luck, insecurities, you name it.

All this time I was there for you. And this was not the only time you’ve come back to slap me in the face.

You never bothered to really see if I was okay. Never cared to look into my eyes and discover that I’m worse off than you are.

That day you watched me fall asleep… you said that I was peaceful.

I can assure you those are the only moments of peacefulness I get out of my day.

That day you said you needed me, I was there.
But the day I needed you, you had vanished into somebody else’s arms.

Not a care in the world, not a look back to see me far off in the distance, too numb from the pain to wave goodbye.

It’s me or someone else, you say. You say I don’t care about the other, which is wrong.

You say it’s stupid of you to assume things about me, which is funny because it’s something people constantly do.

I’m used to it, it happens often.

But I never thought the assumptions would come from you.

I miss you, I need you, and I love you.

So talk to me, please.

Because you’re a part of me that I need.

---
I thought of you when there are doughnuts
and happy chatter all around
Your laughter makes me want to smile
and laugh freely at everyone