maybe, i'll tattoo your lies across my skin just to say
'*******'
to everything i've ever believed in;
and with the boiling rage my heart pumps into my chest,
i'll force the blood of truth down your throat
until you ***** up reality,
but i've never had the heart to rip yours to shreds.

so maybe instead, i'll scratch your eyes out with my own ****** fingernails to shield you from the bruises painted up and down my battered body in all the colors you whispered in my ear while he touched your porcelain frame with the same hands that pulled apart the cage around my heart as you listened to it beat the rhythm of your name.

your broken promises added fuel to the flame rising up in my chest
until the wildfire burned me from the inside out,
and even then you held onto him as i writhed in pain,
just to keep yourself from tending the fire you ignited.

your hands pieced my broken heart into a home,
but you dragged him inside and ****** him in the room i first said
"i love you"
until the walls came crashing down
and my own veins turned in on themselves to keep from smothering the abyss of emphysema you call lungs.

i saved the butts from your last pack to burn my name into your arm,
but why waste a perfectly clean wrist
when i could instead burn off my scars into something empty,
                                 raw,        
                                              and vulnerable,                  
like you and i were before he brainwashed you with his eyes
                                                            ­                    and lips            
                                                ­                 and smile.                  

you built me off an empty promise where your hands were on me
instead of with him,
where your lips left a road map of untraceable patterns along my skin instead of kissing lies into every crevice of my body,
where you whispered that you loved me
instead of screaming his name into my tears.

you warned me you were trouble,
but before you, trouble never meant drunken breath slapping my cheeks until even my own lungs gave up on me,
or blue and purple thumb prints dancing on my throat.

somehow i still believed you when you screamed "i'm sorry" over the sirens carrying me off to a white room where they pumped so many drugs into me that i couldn't count my own fingers and men dressed in blue asked too many questions about bruises i didn't know i even had,
and i lied so well they let you take me home the next day;
i guess i learned from the best.

so maybe, i'll smash that glass doll you can't keep your fingers off of,
and choke you with the filters of an addiction i never asked for,
or drown you in the tears soaked into my pillow from the nights you never came home
and i didn't know if you were dead
or alive
or strung out behind that old club on bourbon street
or wrapped in the sheets with that ***** who fed you everything you thought you wanted until you forgot everything you had.

maybe, i'll kiss you until it hurts,
until you that *** toy you found in the street means nothing to you,
and you remember all the times
i forgave your hands around my throat
and your knuckles on my skin.

i could remind you what love feels like.

maybe, i'll force feed you the pills in my jewelry box all prescribed to cure your lies until i need a whole new round of medication that makes me forget my own name,
but all the drugs in this world couldn't save me from myself,
and even your needles in my veins won't take me back to the first touch the night you brought me home.

i'm not that girl you met under the light of the full moon anymore,
all smiles
               and laughs          
and dancing to music only i could hear,                      
                        now i'm just a reflection of your darkest days,
no wonder you threw me out.

but you can't run from yourself forever.

so maybe, just maybe,
i'll wrap my hands around your throat for a change,
and watch the light leave the most beautiful eyes the sun has ever seen.

maybe i'll bury you alone,
with nothing but the wilting petals of a decaying,
once-red        
                rose.                      

          
     *m.k.