she numbs the smell of cigarettes
with bleach and tears
and she tells me that she doesn't know why
she cries at night
but i know that there's something
that hides behind the light
as her shaking hand reaches out
to flip the switch
i know that she is scared
i ask her what she is thinking
and her lips freeze in an o
and she tells me she's uncomfortable
and that her thoughts are made of nightmares
and codeine mixed with seroquel
and blood on her favorite t-shirt
and she's too scared to tell me
why
her lips are chapped and peeling
her eyes are screaming
so loud that
i can hear it ringing in my ears
and she asks if i can hear them singing too

anjelica says she likes to play games
and she tells me we can have fun
but where is the fun
when she's always just about to run
she asks me to dance
dance
and i realize she never had any chance
to save herself
and my mind says how i should have saved her
i see her in my dreams
and i don't see the cherry tree
along the cobblestone walkway anymore
rather i see dead roses
scattered across a dirt path
and the roses are painted with blood

anjelica screams my name
she asks if i still write about her
she asks if i still love her
she begs to know if i still know her
she tells me she stopped loving me
she tells me she never knew herself
she tells me she tears my poetry because it is
too real
and i realize my dear anjelica
is not
real

she is a thorn i would
bury into my own chest
so that she is near my heart
she smells like cigarettes and bleach
there are tears that stain her cheeks
and mascara that runs down her face

what's wrong with me
i hear her say
and i would love
to tell her that
she is perfection
in the form of a mortal
but i say nothing
and she says nothing
and i can feel the silence
weighing on my head
and it weighs her hair back into curls
and my mind shouts
to know why we do
nothing
i beg the world for something
she tells me she is not alive
and i realize once again
she is not real
anjelica will forever fill my poetry
but anjelica does not
speak

she does not speak to me
unless she needs
more air to breathe
she does not speak to me
she looks at my eyes
with her burning eyes
and we create a new language
that neither of us know
she says she is okay
and she is not okay
she is broken like a lamp
that has fallen off a building that touches the sky
she is not real
anjelica exists only
in my poetry
but she consumes my thoughts
with her charred lungs.