You breathe my name into
your chest, letting me settle
like dust into your bones.

Tethering me to this moment,
eyes fierce, burning as vibrant
as tiger lilies in a vengeful sun.

Your fingers burning holes in
our sheets, leaving remnants
of their disgust in my scars.

Even to this day I cannot stay
up for the sunrise, I find your
taste infused on my tongue.

And I'm still left to wonder if it
was Lucifer I saw in your eyes
or the gods that condemned me.

There are parts of me that
lay unrested - they are ghosts
in hallways, they are smoke
suffocating in locked rooms.

Sometimes I can feel
myself fading and it takes
all I have to pull myself
back from the abyss.

I'm walking on ice, yet
to find a stable foothold in
life seems unprecedented.

I still haven't learnt when
my hands began writing
rather than shaking.

Kiss me where it hurts,
taste the indefinite, there
is something beautiful
in the moments that will
fade without warning.

I've been missing the part
of you that craves only me,
I'm a finely wrapped gift on
your door  — unravel me,
unravel me, I'll buy you more.

You desire the mystery,
feeding the elusive hand
that beckons you — there
are layers to my story but
you only skim the surface.

My ego is a divine thing,
you dress it well, embellish
it with swift strokes, and
pause with fascination.

There are a million ways
to tell me I look good in red
— but I like your way best.

He's the dagger
twisted in my gut,
all the pretty words
dolled up with a
smile that is anything
but pure or true.

He's a spicy treat,
when all I'm looking for
is something sweet.

Perhaps it's wrong of
me, to search for love
in eyes that wander so
far I have to make
maps of their journey.

He has me falling
from the tallest crevices
with promises to catch
me with arms that are
already holding another.

He's a lost cause,
a candle blown out,
the stolen kiss that
was never returned.

But I'd bet all my
money on him within
a heartbeat if he said
he felt even a mere
shadow of what I did.

We will leave you in the midst
of a poetic truce, as you spill
experiences into our open palms.

Writing to make sense of what
has happened, nestling your
deepest secrets in our fingertips.

Our roots so deep in our poetry,
if you tried to unearth us, we would
shriek louder than banshee's.

Unravel our words, enter the
labyrinth of our minds, there are
sunsets in our stomachs, and
December runs through our veins.

We are the stars to your blank skies,
the pause between each ragged breath,
the tragedy suffocating the air.

We are the pause before the applause,
we are rarity's like Haley's comet,
making you scramble for a telescope.

Only crows writhing with broken
necks are more twisted than the life
stories resting under our tongues.

We are poets, engraved in history,
fluent in all that is artistic and worldly.

Poetry is a warm blanket we remain
hidden in on a cold winter morning.
Reality is a cold floor that our
bare feet are too scared to touch.

*By Rapunzel and JannaLee Perry