Step One.

When you are taught that human beings are riddled with gaping holes and survival is nothing more than attempting to stay standing against the rough gusts of wind, allow this fact to coat the surface of your skin. Memorize the mesmerizing patterns of movement of other beings as they struggle to remain on their trembling feet despite the vacancies in their chests, and mimic them with precision. This is the dance of survival that your vacant body will learn until the holes grow too large and the remainder of your body caves. This is how time passes, and this is how time continues.

Step Two.

You are born as a vessel, waiting to be infested with the words of those around you. As you absorb the dancing syllables and learn how to breath in the emotion infused in the air, ensure that you fill yourself up to the brim with this knowledge. Hold these precious collections close, for they are the substance that ensures your body remains seen among the bustling bodies of billions. Then betray your body and allow these collected words escape through petty cracks, knowing that each freed syllable is a step towards invisibility. When you allow all turbulent emotion through the cracks of your lips, you will return to an empty vessel. The silence of vacancy is fatal, and time will persist around your deterioration.

Step Three.

As you grow your body, allow your eyes to stray towards other beings growing their own. You will notice that the curves of your body are not unique, and are merely a slight modification to a standard model. Each word that exits your lips has been uttered before, and each declaration has been confessed long before your body has made its debut. As you allow your fingers to wander around the concave of his body, understand that your body is merely an interruption to the air around it. Any body could take your place, for you are a combinations of tireless repetitions and patterns. When you have allowed this realization to poison your lungs, you will pass as all the other beings have and your time will end. Another repetition will take your place as you have done, and time will go on without you.

I hope you dare
To lean over a cliffs edge
Just to imagine what it might feel like to float through air
Until meeting what is inevitable
Some day
I hope someone deserving finds you
In your shell
And opens it up to find the pearl within
And doesn't steal it
But just stares
Mesmerized
I hope you know
That i'll miss you
Like a leaf misses it's branch when it sways to the ground gently
Only realizing how much it needed the support of a branch to hold it
Up
Rather than facing the true gravity of the situation that is your absence
It fades away
I know you
But I don't know you
I need you
But I won't die without you
Well maybe just a little
And sure new presences will soften the blow
Like how the first poem I heard you read blew me away
Now it feels like I'm being taken
By force
The force of wanting to escape all I've ever known
I just wish you were soon to be known instead of soon to be roaming yonder
So all I can do is hope you fall
Just so you can call
And remind me that even the strongest women
Have bad days
And true best friends can never really separate
If comforts me to know that in some alternate dimension
In some other place
We might be sharing poetry
For an infinite amount of days
Because if there was a place with no time
What would be our excuse not to chill and vibe off highs from listening to eachothers metaphors and rhymes
For like
A good solid day
Every week
And I had to sneak a kiss
After your peck on the cheek
Just to know if the instrument that formed so many beautiful sentences
Was real
And now I know
You're the most genuine person I may ever meet
And now I know I can't ever let go of your hands
As we balance on this tight rope
So long as my heart still beats

Now, here, is a woman who conquers.

She seeps into you,

between the cracks of your magmatic soul

to etch her love into your subconscious.

She will consume you while you gaze upon her,

spinning and sparkling, reaching the sky before the sun begins his shine.

That is her gift.

Her lips form words you’ve needed to hear whispered softly,

only to you;

and her body curves into your touch because tonight

you are the wind on her shores.

She is seduction; crashing destruction;

and you will lose yourself

only to her.

Here, this is my voice box. Please be careful with it because I only have one, its not as loud as yours, and sometimes it cracks when I get nervous,
but for only three minutes of your time and the part of your mouth where it turns up at the end, its yours.

I've always known you thought of this world like a trading post. That each person you meet is absentmindedly trying to bargain away your most important parts,
every piece of gold and silver you have to offer, every wink of eyelash, ever giggle
As if we are untouched, untarnished miracle,
but a rarity waiting to be stolen.  

This life, you say, won't always just give you what you want.

It is all a game of operation that you are so good at.
You know exactly how to pull away people's most important parts without compromising your own.
Giving crocodile tears and counterfeit laughter for footsteps to walk in time with yours.

You guarded your heart like a bird in a cage,
so when it stopped singing, you began handing out ribs you thought were expendable like housewarming gifts in hopes a little company would bring its song back to life
Only I think someone stole it.

Because even though no buzzer went off, you seem to be looking for something to fill that space,
something like someone else's passions, something like power,
Something that is big enough to push out your chest like the way used to, when you still believed that people were worth more than the sum of the parts the could afford to give you.

Now you're all barter and a handshake with fingers crossed.
All swindle, all smooth talk, all scam
and no fairness.

But I am not a pawn shop.

There are things in this world I will forsake for the right deal:
the blush in my cheeks for an extra set of hands,
the grace in my step for the memories of dancing,
lend me your tenderest glance and I will give you every grown up tooth you can see when I laugh
But we are not made of infinity.
You ask for my lips to shape your favourite words
But never my eyes or my shoes to stand from my point of view.
You say their is a beast in my heart, you can see its outline in my jaw,
You offer your tongue to use as a whip
train it not to whisper or sing or beat out of time like yours.
Like the figure eights it creates in the rhythm I dance to were eternal.

I cannot afford to trade this.

I knew a boy who sacrificed his lungs for some peace of mind, and lost both.
I've seen girls who traded in liver and saline for a kiss that they would never be able to call their own
I have watched you chip off your vertebrae one by one, hand out pieces of your spine as currency to keep people off your back.
But I know when something is worth more than the sum of what you are willing to give me.

If you want me to tame the flutter of my heart,
Best bottle up your tears and make room for my own,
or else give me a reason to smile.