I love you, but I am scared of you
I am scared of what you know
Of how you think and how you feel
Of how you are
I am scared of how you see the world
I am scared of how much you know of me
that I don't know of myself
I am scared of your ability
to hurt
to maim
perhaps
to ****
I am scared of how dangerous you can be
Of how dangerous you are
Of your dark tendencies
And your twisted mind
I am scared of what is in your head

You are evil
You threaten me
Blackmail me
Use your power over me
You say 'You don't know what I am capable of'
And I don't
And that is what scares me most
The unknown

Your mind is uncharted waters
I am scared to venture into deep
For fear of being hurt in the crossfire
Because when I am close to you
I fear that you will hurt me
Sometimes, when you are angry
I fear you
I fear for myself
I fear that I am only a pawn in your wicked games
You say you can do things to me
Though I know you never would
It scares me
That you could

You know too much
And see too much
Everywhere you go your eyes flit around
You breathe in everything
You take in every detail
I am scared
of what you take in
about me

Don't you see?
How you terrify me?
You barbarian
So violent, ruthless, unpredictable
Sometimes
It is as if I don't know you
You are a demon
A devil
The spawn of Satan himself
But I love you
I love you
But I am scared of you

Adore the
essence of
simplicity.
There is a
joy in living
with less.

Eulogy singer
Blood bullets explode in my throat
Blood, ink, rusted piano keys
Church pews and surgical scars
Christmas feels like crying
I hope I don't die in Italy
Drinking ink on the bathroom floor
Everything was, but wasn't
It was white shoes, but off white, really
In love, but not
Warm water in the garage
A champagne bottle and a butcher knife
We drank in the streets, and no one got caught
Blood bullets on Main Street, everyone was drops of old beer
That time of year
Bullet holes in the headboard
Used, abused, we don't get to choose
Christmas felt like joy or melancholy or pine or something

Talking to walls can substitute
A kind of feeling not absolute
I often wonder just how long I can go before I have to leak the feelings that nobody else should know
I'm not sure what kind of funk I'm in
Because I only go to sleep when the sun has risen
And I'm not sure how much more I can take of this torturous daze, I've taken blow after blow
But I know it's not your fault
And I do apologize
See, I cannot seem to recover the light in my tired eyes
And I'm afraid there's not much left in me though I've tried very hard to take their insults thinly

But I'm not as strong as you, obviously
And I'm bound to be chained down by him, indefinitely.

I am slowly learning to disregard the insatiable desire to be special. I think it began, the soft piano ballad of epiphanic freedom that danced in my head, when you mentioned that “Van Gogh was her thing” while I stood there in my overall dress, admiring his sunflowers at the art museum. And then again on South Street, while we thumbed through old records and I picked up Morrissey and you mentioned her name like it was stuck in your teeth. Each time, I felt a paintbrush on my cheeks, covering my skin in grey and fading me into a quiet, concealed background that hummed “everything you’ve ever loved has been loved before, and everything you are has already been,” on an endless loop. It echoed in your wrists that I stared at, walking (home) in the middle of the street, and I felt like a ghost moving forward in an eternal line, waiting to haunt anyone who thought I was worth it. But no one keeps my name folded in their wallet. Only girls who are able to carve their names into paintings and vinyl live in pockets and dust bunnies and bathroom mirrors. And so be it, that I am grey and humming in the background. I am forgotten Sundays and chipped fingernail polish and borrowed sheets. I’m the song you’ll get stuck in your head, but it will remind you of someone else. I am 2 in the afternoon, I am the last day of winter, I am a face on the sidewalk that won’t show up in your dreams. And I am everywhere, and I am nothing at all.

i’ve given up on days that begin in late afternoon,
skipped breakfast and lunch,
days that fade slowly and end with
****** cut-out holes in eyelids because
the second i close them and it all goes black,
every moment with you comes back
played on fast-forward, the memories moving so quickly
that both our faces are blurred
and it feels like everything i’ve ever felt for you
is overflowing the tub, filling the washroom with
suds that take forever to melt

i’ve given up on those days.

i’ve traded them for ones that begin with
sunrises instead of sunsets,
days that are spent falling forward
instead of trying to chase the past, and i don’t
look back and see something broken, or
something that was better off left unopened

i look back and see our bodies so close together
that you can’t tell where yours begins and mine ends,
i see my heart that grew twenty-three times its size,
i see you and me wrapped up in something that
i didn’t know existed outside of blurry 35 mm
and overdue and falling-apart library books
that sit on the nightstands of middle-aged women
who are bored with their lives

and i’m just so happy i got to love you at all.

but i’ve folded up all the days spent with you
and taped them in the messy pages of my journal
and now i’m running into the sun,
running away from every lie that’s trying to
wedge its way in between my ribs,
running in the opposite direction of words like "regret"
and any feeling that insists that none of it was worth it

because all of it was worth it.

every moment we were together pumps
through my veins, and it will always be there;
it will be there when we’ve both graduated,
when you move out west,
when you kiss your family goodnight,
when you sit in your backyard with tears
in your eyes because you’ve lived a life
you are proud of

it will be there when i finally make it to new york city,
when i kiss someone who isn’t you,
when i find the answers you inspired me to search for,
when i sit on my rooftop with tears on my cheeks
because i’ve lived a life fuller than i could’ve ever imagined

and you and i will live these lives apart,
we’ll move on and forget what it felt like
to wake up beside one another;
we’ll find what we’re looking for elsewhere
and we’ll understand why this all had to happen the way that it did

but what we had will always exist somewhere,
in rotting apples and old mail and unplayed mix CDs,
in mosaics that line the city streets, in sirens and
red and white flashing lights that shine through
your window while you are asleep

you and i were magic,
we always will be.