his darkness became
tainted by my red

i burst like the sunrise
on the canvas of his skin,
raw and hot, red, red, red

i set flame to the somber
blues we'd once painted
our skin deep with.

kissing the echoes of
our past, but always
pulling away too soon.

i was too red, too vibrant.

he didn't like the taste
i left on his tongue
it was bitter like him,
it stung of the past he'd
tried to bury on my lips

my skin would ash
but he'd miss the flames.
my pulse would gallop
and intrude like
summer into his veins.

he still doesn't realize
that beauty has a price

he plucks roses and
wonders why they wither
when he's never learnt
to check their roots.

with thorns between his lips,
he speaks softly about
the way love has eluded
him over the years.

his palms like written verse,
scarred and coarse, petals
falling delicately out of
time from his fingertips.

he sees beauty but he
does not see underneath

he has always been
one to see the flames
but never feel the heat.

she slides her slender
white fingers down the
branches of his spine

her eyes melted like
glaciers and lips as soft
as freshly fallen snow

skin lustful, but heart
unforgiving, exhaling
his every intention

she is autumn in his
palms, her trees bare,
the leaves rust fallen

flashing indifference,
thoughts plucked in
shades of violent rose

i still remember the nights
spent tracing her lips, looking
for meaning in their cracks.

(shrunken spines, curling
lips and cosmic eyes.)

she'd kiss away my fears,
paint them black and blue,
distorting memories until
they became meaningless
lies dripping so easily off
her tongue that i'd soon begin
to mistake them for truths

(shrunken spines, curling
lips and cosmic eyes.)

Untouchable, she was the
kind of beauty to keep you
transfixed, swirling skies,
killing time, the crescendo
building up in your head
until everything just
suddenly
               goes
                       blank.

she was shrunken spines,
curling lips and cosmic eyes

i loved her, i hated her,
i still wish i could see her
without the memories
lying breathless,
clouding my gaze.

Innocence is the days when
I thought that monsters
lived under the bed rather
than slept right beside me.

It was the times I feared
heights almost as much as
I now fear brooding stares.

Back when I thought
passionate love was the
only kind worth having
— that I now wish for a
lover who loves quietly.

Innocence was thinking
danger was an ill-advised
adventure, not a man.

It was admiring a tornado
heart and not realizing the
damage it would cause.

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.