i wanted sin and *** appeal,
but you were my achille's heel.
i singed my skin so i could no longer feel
what's real, unreal—
what's real—
—unreal

and it goes like this:
one day you will look at me
and tell me i'm beautiful like
you always do and i will
not be able to take it anymore

i've been trying hard not to
be in love with you like i know i always
have been, because since day one
i never wanted to just ******* or lie to you
or push you away

i just
wanted
you

beautiful you, with
your quirked eyebrow and your
mother's nose and your love of
stormy afternoons and most recently
me

(i think about you all the time)
you tell me, like i don't understand
but one day you will learn that
i have written hundreds of lines of
poetry about you and i hope that they
will make you
smile

i've found myself merging into a race of people
where i am nothing but lightning, so painfully
visible but not loud enough to be thunder. my
body started springing up from the earth into a
thorn bush, not yet becoming roses. although
when my feet hit cement, they leave behind
a path of flowers that quickly manage to cease.
my brain is wired in a way where i don't sense
destruction until it creeps up on me like the flu.
like a leech, i desperately latch onto my mistakes
because they are expectant and familiar with me
and i am familiar with them. i don't know a life
without sadness but i know how to be happy.

- kra

[theres something wrong with her]* , i told him,
[she's beautiful.] *
/cause or symptom?/ he asked, and i shrugged.she was wearing green nail polish
and cheap sandals, drinking bottled water,
i was on the corner like a vagrant,
sundress and sunglasses,
reading far too much into
every movement.
she looked like she tipped taxi drivers far too much,
like she could break every bone
and laugh about it the next day,
and i wanted to **** her.
like that would give me part of her, like an exchange
and not just an act.
{she was looking at her phone and she laughed at god knows what,
a text or a picture or anything but i
wanted to cook for her,
i wanted to sleep with her and still be friends
the next day}
he nudged me and i shrugged,
traced patterns on the sidewalk till she left.
/there's something wrong with you/ he told me. i shrugged.