i used to swallow pills as if it were like
catching moonshine between my lips.
but my dear, you seem to
forget
that you are now my moonshine
and if you leave…

and i am convinced that this collapsed bone structure
of mine
is a constellation because only stars
can twist so much inside and still
be audible.

i wonder if you are ever cold
while being a blanket
for me to want,
to cover this half-heart i wear
in my eyes.

but your arms stretch like the universe
and make me feel so irrelevant.

if our souls touch,
the sun collapses

between us

and light beams
crash down our throats
like victorian chandeliers.

we’re drowning,
drowning
in lemon-thick shells
that are
too inaudible to break.

you never taught me
how to swim
and now i can’t brea–

kiss me like i’m a falling star,
so when our lips meet, fireworks explode.

carry me like we’re lovers at sea,
tumbling and turning, but taking things slow.

smother me like some foggy haze,
fill my every pore and set me aglow.

need me like i’m the air you breathe,
and cherish me so that i always know.

hold me like it’s the end of infinity,
and until that very moment, never let me go.

my mother is a hummingbird;
always nervous,
fretting between ideas
faster than we can see,
too full of memories to
stay still for long.

but i am the tortoise;
taking months to put
one foot in front of
the other, too curious,
too foolish.
i build my shell so
that the world can
not reach me, so
that it only echoes,

echoes,

and fades away
as i bury beneath
my skin.

the night begins to dress the earth
as i kneel beside the windowsill
watching the stars, the only part
of the world left unchanged.

and i listen to you breathe,
your sighs soft like an autumn day.
the nape of your neck curves
like a crane dusted with wanderlust,
its wings unfolded toward the moon.

the way your legs tangle
around your idea of a perfect girl
makes me sink to the floor,
draping my arms around my legs.
i stare down at my kneecaps,
one an oval, the other a full moon –
you would’ve called this imperfection.

but i kneel beside the windowsill
searching for train tracks and
airplanes that’ll lead you home
because even though you tore me apart,
i need to know that when i set you free
you’ll be going someplace better.

and the moon will sigh at the sight
of two not-quite lovers parting, but
i forgive you.

i forgive you for
dreaming of prettier green eyes
and softer skin and
telling me i would never be good enough.

because after i stitch myself back together
i’ll be strong enough to move the stars
closer to the windowsill with my eyes
and stop the effluvia of tears
that’ll pour from my soul every time
i think of you,
breathing.

fingers (and legs) lace tight together. i can
feel our time together seeping through the cracks.

and i know that once daylight breaks
and rose petals lead me all the way home,
existence will be just one lungful of air away.

(but you’ve left me breathless once again, darling.)

stygian nights
and i peer into the sky,
contemplating the planets that sail
round and round on riverboats
in their titian skin.

and i bet their bone structures
have collapsed by now
as they breathe aside the sun,
but they know they need to spin
and spin because they are the only ones
left untouchable in this world.

and i'm glad there's something to look up to
because sometimes my fingertips reach
to grasp the orbs,
stretch to feel some sort of purity
adorning my dirtied soul.
and sometimes i lift my face skyward
to let my eyes drink
the same silver water
the planets glide across.

i dream that i can feel the stars
settling on the corners of my eyes
and i dream that ebony night quietly explodes
between my bones
until when i awaken beneath the streetlights.
i swear i can feel the night slip like liquid sand
through my fingertips.

and god, i need you. i need you.
because only when the moon
enlightens my palms can i see the
maps pressed to my skin.

and without the stars draping light
across my cheeks,
a sleepy black curls around my ankles
and follows me to bed.

i guess i'm made of stark marrow
and naked ocean eyes,
pale in comparison to your lovely sinews.

but that's why i need you.

i need you to
break through my windowsill each sundown
and play my skin like an instrument.
spill sonatas through each corner of the world,
because with you alive
and with me breathing and laughing
i will feel whole.

now in your haste,
you’ve created a
montage of emotions.

you told me you knew
how to do anything,
but i watch you with
your rickety fingers and
wonder how consistent
one’s heart can be with
such erratic hands.

i came to you like a torn
still frame.
blown in the wind,
ripped, tattered, cracked.

you took one look at me,
one real look,
and you froze.
with terror,
with uncertainty,
with love.

your eyes shred me to pieces
and one gusty night,
you blew me away.

crinkled love notes litter the battlefield that had
spread between us. and we are nothing now,
nothing but ashes and stone. you spoke in a
whisper too slurred to decipher and i swallowed
words too ridiculous to comprehend. and
papercuts line my throat from the nights i consumed
all your lies, like a child riding some sick, suicidal
carousel. and as it turns out, i’m delusional. lost
and oh so terrified of the dark because there
are ghosts, and they whisper to me, telling
tales of lost boys with beautiful eyes and
heavy smiles who want to be found (just once
more.) and i know there were faults and there
were breaks. but i swear we had each other at
goodbye.

because i’ve always been addicted to catastrophe;
and you were just the beginning of my end.

stagnant nights and i peer into the sky
contemplating the planets that sail round
and round on riverboats in their titian-streaked
skin. and i bet their bone structures have
collapsed by now as they breathe aside the
sun, but they know they need to spin and spin
because they are the only ones left untouchable
in this world.

and i’m glad there’s something to
look up to because sometimes my fingertips
reach to grasp the orbs, stretch to feel some
sort of purity adorning my dirtied soul and i lift
my face skyward to let my eyes drink the same
silver water the planets glide across.

sometimes
i dream that i can feel the stars settling on the
corners of my eyes and ebony night quietly
exploding between my bones until when i
awaken beneath the streetlights i swear i
can feel the night slip like liquid sand between
my fingertips.

god i need you, i need you, because
only when the moon enlightens my palms can
i see the maps pressed to my skin, and without
the stars draping light across my cheeks, a
sleepy black curls around my ankles and i
do not know where to go.

and i guess i’m made of naked ocean eyes and
stark marrow, pale in comparison to your
lovely sinews, but that’s why i need you. i need
you to break through my windowsill each
sundown and play my skin like an instrument,
spill sonatas through each corner of the world
because with you alive and with me breathing
and laughing i will feel
whole.

precariously balanced, these glass shards are.
little pebbles mingle in her hands, forming
a little hill of something that used to be big
and beautiful. the artist, she will keep holding
on until her fingers break and her heart stops.
so she prepares to put the past back together.

breath shaky, she knows that beauty has a price.
so she cancels her weekend plans, give up on
finally cleaning her cluttered room, dons her
work clothes, and begins a project anew.

the artist’s fingers are not trembling, but
her resolve is. there is great pressure; to
be god one must create something out
of nothing. to be an artist, one must create
something beautiful out of a mess. she
does not want to be god, but glass is harder
to piece back together than it is to make.
and she cannot hold it together anymore.

they fall to the floor, the artist and her
failed masterpiece. glass makes a pretty
sound when it breaks, and so does her heart.
a pretty little ****** that resounds in
the floorboards, that travels to the neighbours
and makes them smile because something
almost beautiful but not quite is happening.

beauty has it’s price.
but this artist is too poor to pay in full.

we love the pieces, shattered and confused.
broken and misled, you dreamed of days when
you would find the one who could hold you
together before they set you apart, just one more
time. and we drink down the sadness and eat up
the morose, because this world is full of
great depressions. a struggling, recovering,
hopeless addict for the irredeemable and never
again. we chose revenge, when it’s redemption
we’re craving. and now this ****** battle takes
its honour in the sky as we send thursdays our
love and wish upon two stars for the grace we
were never given. i may have been a mistake, a
mishaps, a worthless outcast. but the colours
in your voice told me otherwise, even though
the talk in your eyes denied everything. and
the trees, they talk, they whisper the things
you were too cowardly to admit.

so i’ll pretend to fall in love with life once again,
until you’re ready to open your eyes up
to a different world.

his hands were in my hair shoving my head down. i turn my face, and flashflash, i’m stitching myself inside out and all i can come up with is stained betrayal. his teeth are tough on my neck. i imagine they’re metal and somehow, it hurts less. his hands on my hips and he’s pulling me backwards. i’m screaming in my head, my skin is cracking and molding.

i still dream about it.

i still run my fingers along the edges and look at the scars, the bruises, the cigarette burns.

i throw my arms over my face and his mouth is by my ear and he whispers “i know you want it.”

i’ve always wanted it, just not with you.

i feel the wall against my head before the rest of me follows and crumbles like old newspaper.

someday i will be in the yellow pages, soaking through the paper and smiling, half-heartedly, through the words.

and i still wonder if the last lesson was learned. what never happened that night and never was, with him anyways, because of the blood between my thighs.

in my memory his face blurred in two different directions – as his jeans unzipped and i stopped breathing. he blurred into a future and i blurred into a past but somehow the world stopped at the present. his hands were unusually soft on my face.

they say jesus looks on and his palms are burning black. i’d love to smoke his skin in a snail shaped pipe and fly.

his hands are going up my shirt, the walls spin in twenty different versions of up and down. colour can no longer be contained. in my mind i run. in reality i couldn’t move.

the story will never end. the story will never change. i know my future will be just like my past, because affection is my weakness and the hole in my heart is growing. they say jesus will kiss the bruises on my hips and tell me it’s okay. if i get on my knees and pray well, they say he’ll forgive me.

i stopped believing in belief long before he tried to take it away.

i’ve decided i’m letting it all shatter.

i can’t just look like this, all the time –
acting like i’m full of love and sea salt.

i’m so sick of building roads to my heart like
i’m some ******* harlot. (wait,
i am some ******* harlot.)

wait, why do i keep catching
your smell at the back of my throat?
who said you could be there loving me – ?
certainly not i.

maybe i should have told you all this
before baby, it’s etched into my seams.
“i am *****” and i am not
stopping.

everyone pretends to loves a *****
and right now pretending is
good enough
for me.

from afar it seems beautiful, precious even. things taking shape,
rearranging, molding into something new. on the inside,
when it's me, or him, or both of us, it's like destruction.
destruction of the beauty and affection.
seeing, but from a distance. reaching, unable to grasp.
we are two people. two living, breathing human beings
walking the same ground as everyone else, and we're changing.
i've admitted, but not accepted, this fact. for the better seems
out of question. we're distant, unaware, and i can feel it hurt deep within me.
i can feel it hurt when i look in his eyes as he quickly looks away,
and again when i see him hesitant, but not quite worried.
terrified- i'm terrified of what's to come next,
which part of my heart will shatter as soon as i realize
this isn't something we can save.

everything is blurred, unrecognizable and my head starts to spin.
friends are changing, thoughts are changing, family is changing,
the world is changing. out of everything becoming new again,
he was the one exception, the one thing that stayed the same,
kept me sane, kept me grounded.

with all of this, it seems there are two possible solutions,
both in which are equally impossible and unreachable:
pause everything, rewind, fast forward, whatever it takes to wipe the slate clean,
to become clear again,
or
hold him firmly, hands on his shoulders, give him a good shake,
maybe knock this urge to reconstruct out of his veins and
onto the floor where i could stomp it, **** it, make it gone for good.
none of which will happen. i will continue to live in question,
watching my back, and at every turn i'll brace for impact.

change. hardly beautiful when everything in clear view is distorted.