1.
Your love was words written in snow, and they melted into me, not a trace left in the morning as our bodies turned to fire beneath a thin sheet.
The waning heat as night fell returned with a palm to my cheek
And bruises on my throat
Colors that reminisced about sunset cigarettes
And fallen petals from roses cut off at the neck.
I wanted you to sever me in the same way.

2.
Head buried in the sand, I hoped my skin would absorb its hue.
Remember when we made dresses of leaves for cigarette **** dolls?
Those ******* were my friends.
You said that's why you didn't finish the last inch of your beers so I washed them back and watched you take miles and miles
Bottles breaking in quivering hands.

3.
I never minded the taste of blood, so I licked our wounds clean.
I'm beginning to question what "self-inflicted" actually means.

You should have brought me to the hospital that night
Instead you took me and I took another bottle of pills to try to better know that ever elusive quiet.
But quiet is a **** tease and you're meaningless to me.

4.
Silence and quiet are twins
Infantile in their ways
Two drunks stumbling through mounds of glitter from some winter parade.
Streetlights reflecting in their pale eyes
Frostbitten fingers itching at half-turned locks
Their sighs slip through doorjambs whispering of kisses and comfort
Weaving images of abandoned bathtubs into dreams of a lone child sleeping upstairs.
One who longs to be known, yet forgotten.