The re-echoes of words you once said bounce around my body from bone to bone, trying to find a place to escape
And The chattering sound of your words rattling around inside me
keep me up at night and I can hear people talk about the pushing on my ribcage
they can see the words imprinted onto my skin and they won't shut up with their constant conversation
about the time you told me you loved me
And the words rip through my skin like the arrows stabbing into the props you practice with
hit or miss but you hit me Everytime And now that I think about it I was only one of your props to throw out after awhile

She told my dad he was “kind of an *******”
the first time we had dinner with him,
at this place called The Pear Room
but she was disappointed that there were not only
no pear decorations, but that there was not a single dish
with a pear included. She ordered a dry martini
with three olives on a skewer,
but she never took one sip. She gulped.

She came at me like an avalanche in jean mini skirt.
I tried to run ahead of her, but she picked up speed
and tossed me right into her path with scratch marks
on my back to prove it. You’d never know it
by the way she twirls her hair into a bun at the top of her head
just to take her make-up off, how she laughs
instead of getting ******, or how she sometimes
orders her dessert before her meal, but she’s just a girl
who puts on her toughness in the morning like a slip.
She folds

her dollar bills into fourths before she puts them in her wallet,
and she strings herself like paper chains
against the sun every day as she drives to a job she hates.
She listens to Miles Davis on her record player,
asks me to dance at half past eleven on nights I need to sleep,
but I get up anyway. I pour us both a glass of Coke
and try to capture the reflection she doesn’t see of herself,
mirror it in my eyes, just so she knows that she
is not just another item on the menu.

You found me awake but asleep on the bathroom floor.
Strung out.
Blood filling the tub with bright red.
The sinks over flowing causing an ocean to form
From head to toe.
I was breathing just fine sunken under
Because my brain has already deteriorated to nothing.
And my bones are like chalk.
Write a sentence about
why the willow tree looked so sad.
You said that it's hard to keep your head up in a constant down pour, which I didn't understand until now.
And Sometimes I wonder if your touch is merely my Imagination pulling a facade on me.
But when I look down there's a hand print that screams your name in my face.
Screams words of false hope that I know already.
I'll fold myself into a square.
Place this figure in a box unknown and burry it 6 feet under.
A place to hide away from the rain.

There would never be a King, if there was not a Queen.

DC

She’s the type to eat a bowl of ice cream,
shoot a gun, and be fine. I’ve never seen so many pieces
under someone’s rug before, but she keeps
herself in cookie jars, in ink cartridges, in book binds,
anything she can find. I’m surprised she even looks
in the mirror anymore. It’s not possible that she’s herself whole.
But she braids her hair back when she rides her horse,
she channels old Miranda Lambert
and pumps that kerosene melody through her veins
like it wont’ catch fire. I’ve seen her
poke her head through old sweaters like she thinks
it’ll be something new this time. I’ve seen her paint
her skin in expensive body washes, the washcloth
like sandpaper as she tries and tries to smooth
all of the uneven edges she’s collected.

I bet you could watch her memories in a wishing pool,
like in a mini mall, with all the pennies heads down.
They would spin themselves around the surface,
suffocating one another so that only the good ones would shine,
but she dare not pour herself into something that reflective.
It would only reveal what she ties into the waistband
of her old American Eagle jeans every morning,
and that would just be too **** hard. It’s easier
to venture ******* with a crummy perspective
and a realistic approach than it would be to even consider
that maybe this time it wasn’t her fault
for expecting to much, and that maybe people just ***** up.
That maybe, for once she wouldn't blame it on it getting her hopes up
that made her fall, but that no one was there to catch her.
I’d rather watch her cry herself to sleep for months

than to pretend I admire the harsh falsetto she bites back
in all of her lullabies. But she’s the type
to burn old pictures for fun, to delete contact names,
to swallow all her sadness and paint her bedroom a new color
than watch herself come undone.