"Not all words can teach us to heal."
                        -8 word story

Don't worry, she said, I won't run,

my skin taught me needles mean
the pain is done.

Objectively, my hands are here, in front of my face I can see.
Subjectively**, all my vision allows are the images of what I possess that can no longer carry me.

It's been a long time and it's been a day,
the words I want to write are crammed into the front of my mind but I want them to be shadows in the back,
the tiny flecks of brightened skin you left on my hip remind me where you were and where you are now, not with me.

I know to keep you I have to put you far away,
in order to have you I must remain not yours,
the syntax necessary to speak must contain half the warmth of inflection I wish to place within it,
and the heart I wish to give buried beneath the body I allow you to hold.

People like to say ***** tastes like love,
I say it tastes like the thoughts we are trying to choke down,
but pushing the poison further into our bodies,
letting it percolate in our bloodstream,
it becomes inevitable it will rise  up again.

You say you're trying to live,
how romantic,
you're really trying to drown.
It's a shame because your life is twenty times more beautiful than your death could ever be.

Less meaning is found in your blood than in your pen,
these days your heart is made of the paper you write on
and under your capable hands,
it is never clean.

I'd like to think the ink crawling across the pages of your book
makes more than one kind of poetry,
and that you unravel the words,
carrying them in your pockets,
instead of hiding them under your skin.

I can see them you know,
the dark fleeting clouds of thought hovering in the stratosphere behind your eyes,
your pupils are swimming in the contents of that bottle,
and the ***** can no longer be found.

I have poems inside of me that my lips can't form into words,
that my keys can't handle,
that paper would burn.
I have thoughts inside of me that my heart can't hold,
that my fingers can't grasp,
that sentences can't form.
I have pain inside of me that my body doesn't feel,
that my skin can't touch,
that scarves can't cover.