I found myself in your apartment. blood red lights stringing along the walls, mimicking the flashing in my old driveway. I played music sung by dead girls and blind boys who couldn't get over them. I left the window wide because the frigid air slipped off the pine needles and bit at my wrists. numbness and normality were no longer friends of mine, and misery was my first lover.

I left myself on your back porch. seven cigarettes stuffed down my sweater, shying away from heavy rain. it raced down the roads and I thought of how you tried to run away from us. I watched the streetlights carve patterns into concrete. I watched you slip away in the plastic blue chair across from me. my favorite song dancing and curved in my ears but I only found comfort in the voices. I longed to fear the world again, as I should've. as I used to.

I hurt myself with the drag of the first cigarette which you watched me light effortlessly, the flame flashing in my face for just a moment. I felt your bambi eyes trace my tender, quivering jaw. you were a fragile fawn with heavy bones, knobby knees, and empty whimpers. and I was the forest hiding your shaking limbs. I swayed with white wine running through me, raw liquid heat that warmed my bones and calmed my screaming mind.

I lost myself when I flicked the third cigarette three stories over the rails, dripping black like my favorite ink. dark as the nights we curled together, seperated by only greedy fingertips. nights loaded as your sleepy lies that I so longed to trust. but I was gone. I had stood silent in death, led by embers, led by your voice which still echoes in my skull. led by the world my brain had painted when my eyes couldn't grasp reality. you twisted my spine until I had no sense of direction. I am still so lost.