if
                                                 i
         we
                  re
                                    
                                          to
                        
                           f
                            a
                              l­
                                l
  
                         ­    a                          a
                                    ­                                                      t
         ­                           p                                     ­             
                                                   ­                      r

                                 you'd always be there to catch me.
                            a safe place to land, a safe home to haunt,
                                       your arms are my temple,
                                          your shoulders my fort,
                                               my steady pillars,
                                                     my whole
                                                         world
                                                           ­ in
                                                             y
                                                             o
                                                             u
                                                              r­
                                                             b
                                                             o
                                                             n
                                                             e
                                                             s

The future has razor-sharp
edges, swiftly cutting
bright red wet and ugly scars.
The past is a blunt knife,
dull and rusty
and I'm being stabbed
and stabbed
and stabbed.
I am stuck in the
present down on my knees
swimming in blood and saliva
with dry tears streaming
down my face
unable to catch a breath
choking on misery
nails dug deep into
my skin
and I am screaming
but no one can hear
and I want to rip
my trachea out and chop
my lungs and eat my heart out
and pull out all
those miles of intestines;
I want to flay my skin
and lay it out for you to
see my scars.
I'm a grotesque of
days long gone
of days that reign
of days that soon will be.
I am the monster you created,
you Dr. Frankensteins,
I am your masterpiece,
I am what you made me
but you won't leave me be.

I know it's called "the present",
but God help me, it's simply not a gift.

I know how to say
"I love you" in
English and French,
and Spanish and Italian,
and Russian and Bulgarian,
and Arabic and Dothraki
and High Valyrian,
and Klingon,
and in any other language
you ask,
I know how to
write "I love you"
in Gallifreyan and
Tengwar,
I know how to make up
a billion different poems
about my love for you.

But still, it won't make you
love me back. I somehow
was never enough for you.
You keep me awake every night
wondering why you left
and I think it's high time
I started looking up
how to say "I don't hate you",
"I've moved on", "I don't miss you"
and "I am okay" in all these
languages in which
"I love you" didn't matter.

7pm:** it's one of those nights
8pm: watch tv
9pm: keep distracted
10pm: plan for tomorrow
11pm: go to bed
12pm: wake up and try to read until I fall asleep
1am: remember your charming smile and the way you run your fingers through your hair.
2am: flip angrily through the pages that I skim over because for some reason I strongly believe that a book on love will help me get over you
3am: think about why you don't and never did love me
4am: count the hours until I have to get up and blame you for keeping me awake.
5am: you used to keep me awake for things like talking about our futures and now I'm left here with half an empty bed wondering why your future doesn't involve me
6am: wake up tired from my 15 minute sleep and wonder how even on the darkest nights the sun still manages to rise
7am: I'm drinking coffee out of a cup that used to touch your lips every morning, like me, and I know you won't be back for either of us

The angels gathered
at dusk
when the sky was clear
and the wind was silent.
One was stick thin
with ribs protruding,
piercing the feeble
crumbling skin
and the angel was
starving, with
stomach growling
but the angel
wouldn't eat.
The second angel
had a fake smile
plastered,
so fake that its
mouth (decaying
with acid)
looked grotesque
and the angel
looked tormented
because it had
spent the past hour
on its knees
in a bathroom
emptying its
stomach
but it still thought
its smile was
convincing.
The third angel
had long
thin scars
bleeding red
all over its arms
but it smiled
its brightest smile,
chin up,
eyes bright
(but it secretly screamed
at itself late at night).

And many more
angels came,
all of them transparent,
with skin like
parchment
and eyes hollow,
eye sockets painfully
dug into their skulls,
with blue-purple
half-moons under
eyes losing their spark,
with crumbling,
burning smiles
that stung with
insincerity
and pure
venomous self-hatred,
and the angels dared not
face each other
and cut their own wings
feather by feather
and refused to believe
that they had not fallen.
But they hadn't, truly.
They had simply jumped.