I move through time like a ghost.
You move through me like a house.
You want me to make you my home.
I wasn't made to own anyone.
Can you see past what I have made this skin into?
I'm not any prettier on the inside.
I am smoke.
I am coal.
I am what settles after a natural disaster.
And still, I grow.
I grow.
I grow.
Into nothing at all.
What will I become?
There is a garden in your lungs.
You breathe violets onto me.
You make me dream the way a blind man might-
no colors,
only sounds;
just words shaking apart in my chest.
I could be so lovely for you,
if only I was made another way.
I could follow you into the void.
I could follow you into oblivion.
Can you take me to the place angels go?
Can you make me feel the way the sky does when the moon is fresh and small?
Please,
paint me pretty,
and strong,
and whole.
I am not a graveyard.
Will you make a monument of me?
You make me feel bright blue,
like irises moving in the wind;
fragile;
beautiful;
so ready to fall apart.
I have put down roots in this shining countryside,
and I am clutching at dirt,
and grass,
and moving things,
and I am trying not to drift away.
I think this summer wants to take me.
Do you still weep for me?
The rain seems to stay away.
I have counted twenty-six clouds in the sky.
They have taken the shape of your hands on my skin.
I am shaking-
away,
apart.
My bones fall into one another.
I never ate my greens.
You used to ask me questions about the skin above my ankles.
Do you still think of me?
This summer wants to take me.
When we were sixteen I burned you with the brightly glowing cherry of a cigarette.
You kissed me like water,
like glass,
like breathing.
Can you take me to the place behind the sky?
I want to be a mountain.
I want to grow and grow.
The river used to speak to me.
It said, "Collapse."
It said, "It will only hurt a little."
But I am just a stone.
I still feel like I'm falling.
I was born in July.
Somewhere, people wept.
I came out of my mother kicking and screaming.
I took pieces of her with me.
I think she should have named me
Calamity,
or Chaos,
or Cancer.
Would you have loved me then?
I was not made a good thing.
My eyes are windows,
my mouth a door,
and my heart?
It is but dust.
But ash.
But embers hot on skin.
I burn. I burn. I burn.
I cannot belong to you,
or anyone.
The smell that follows lightening?
That is what I am.
I fade into black.
I fade into nothing.
This is the thing I want to be:
LIGHT.
I want to speak to God.
I want to give him back this anguish-
eighteen years worth.
Would he take this ******, beating thing?
I will ask him this:
Why are we so permanent?
The stuff we are made of-
its sticks to things;
to fingers and minds and memories.
You build me again in your head.
Let me be forgotten.
Let me be-
Let me be-
Let me be light.