her breathing was ragged and
sweet;
like strawberries that stuck in my
throat.
sickly summers had never tasted
so divine.
her laugh burst effervescently; it
was lemonade
on my tongue. her skin was
peaches,
her hair a soft toffee that wouldn't
leave
my fingertips. i found her melting
on my hand.
like ice cream, her cold hurt my
teeth
but left me craving more. her name
caught
somewhere between my jaws
and never
*******
left.

but when i leave
will there be nothing?
will my solipsistic
(vaguely narcissistic)
beliefs be proved
with an ephemeral body
and even more fleeting soul?

will there just be blackness?
or will i be with someone
(or something)
greater than my sordid self?
i don't mean to be nihilistic
but how can i not be
when we're so short-lived?
how can anything matter
when we know no answers
and tell so many lies?

i am ready for blackness.
it sounds so quiet.
life is all too loud
for my agnostic mind.

nothing seems real anymore.
i am roaming the earth
with transparent feet
trying not to fall through the ground.

my bones are always cold.
i am trying to scream
but no one can hear.
no one sees me anymore.

i am not quite dead; not quite alive.
a stranger in my own skin
but not a ghost.
even ghosts have homes to haunt.

when I told the only person I trusted
about all the times I tried
and failed
to die,
they told me that I can't have meant it
judging by the fact
that I am still here.

I did mean it.
and my broken mind
and my burning stomach
wish that I didn't.
I wish that I didn't.
but I also wish that I meant it more.
maybe then everything would stop
hurting so much.
maybe then I wouldn't regret failing.

you used to flow through my veins
but then you left
and now it's just blood
and it's not even all there
because most of it stains the sheets
that you used to lie on
and tell me you loved me.

we only feel so empty
because we left
little pieces of ourselves
in everything that
we once loved;
once lost.

people only see youth
in the eyes of a child
and not in the soft hands
of a 70 year old woman
who still believes in magic.