WHEN I SLEEP ALL I SEE IS YOUR ******* FACE
IT'S BEEN THREE YEARS AND YOU STILL WON'T LEAVE ME ALONE
YOU'RE BARELY A VAPOR BUT I STILL HEAR YOUR VOICE IN MY HEAD STOP TEMPTING ME TO JUMP OFF YOUR CLIFF
THE TRUTH AND I SHARE A WATERY GRAVE AND I DON'T WANT TO FACE MY OWN FUTURE
MY HEARTBEAT HAS FLUCTUATED SEVEN TIMES IN THE PAST HOUR
FOUR TIMES WERE YOUR FAULT
THE REST WERE BECAUSE OF MY ASTHMA ATTACK I HAVE TO USE MY INHALER WHENEVER I HEAR YOUR VOICE IN MY HEAD
I WOKE UP YESTERDAY AND YOUR NAME BLED OUT OF MY MOUTH LIKE WATER FROM A ******* SPOUT WHY CAN'T I FORGET YOU ALREADY
IF I SHOOT YOUR GRAVESTONE WILL YOUR GHOST GO UP IN FLAMES?IF I CLAW OUT MY EYES WILL I FINALLY STOP SEEING YOU IN PLACES YOU CANNOT BE?IF I LET FEATHERS FALL FROM MY BACK LIKE ANGELS' WINGS WILL YOU COME BACK TO LIFE?
TOUCH YOUR FINGERS TO MY CROWS FEET AND TELL ME I LOOK ******* AWFUL
PLEASE JUST TELL ME I LOOK ******* AWFUL
THERE ARE SEVEN WAYS TO TELL SOMEONE YOU HATE THEIR GUTS
ONE OF THEM IS DYING
I'M SORRY YOU HATE MY GUTS BUT I HATE YOURS MORE
I HATE YOUR LIVER AND YOUR KIDNEYS AND YOUR ******* LUNGS I HATE HOW MUCH YOU SMOKED
I HATE HOW YOU REMEMBERED MY ASTHMA AND BLEW OUT THE ASHES AWAY FROM MY FACE
WEAVE LACEWORK OVER MY HANDS AND FACE LEAVE DOTS OF BLOOD AROUND MY EYES
SHOW ME YOU WERE HERE
SHOW ME THAT I DIDN'T MAKE YOU UP YOU WERE NEVER A FEVER DREAM
YOU WERE COLD AND REAL AND I WISH YOUR PIANIST'S FINGERS COULD STILL PLAY
THERE IS NO GREY AREA ON A BABY GRAND
NO ROOM FOR ERROR WHEN YOU CRASH YOUR CAR INTO A BRICK WALL
THEY TOLD ME TO HONOR YOUR MEMORY SO I CUT OUT MY LUNGS IN THE HOPES THAT IT WOULD HELP YOU TO BREATHE AGAIN
THIS IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A TSUNAMI AND A HURRICANE.

he remembers your touch but not your face
maybe if you hold on a little tighter he'll respond with a smile
he's archaic and you're a battlefield
you were never meant to touch in the first place
acute lines connecting against the laws of science
he's a geometry problem, roughness against blood vessels
his hips jut out from under his shirt
you press your thumbs against them and breathe
try not to ***** yourself on his ribcage
he'll kiss you like he means it but his eyes will cloud when you look into them
he doesn't always recognise your voice
you kiss him anyway you hold him close like maybe if your hearts beat in time for long enough he'll start to feel it
the first time he looks at you with eyes that belong to him you think your lungs might close up
he sketches you, fingers trailing like stardust over skin and jutting bone
you used to dig a knife into the palm of your hand just to make sure you would bleed like everybody else
he used to dig a knife into the upper-left side of his chest just to make sure he was really human
you cradle your scars together
LIVEDIELIVEREPEAT
the pain's more bearable with him
you hold him when he has nightmares and he holds you when you can't take living
(all that you used to know is gone;
you're all each other has left
survivors of a lost age)
life is a series of compromises
you've already made enough for one lifetime

i still feel your fingerprints at my spine, smokestacks
on a clear day,
cigarette dangling from your teeth as you spat tobacco onto my back
like it was your canvas.
the sooty backwash from your coffee in my lungs, and you are a supernova, as always.
i tried to tell you that i was a lit match and you threw me into a gasoline pit anyway
your smile is carved into my lungs i still need your voice to breathe
i'm choking on ******* fumes because you
curled your hand into my throat and ripped out my vocal chords
you told me this was the way you loved
i never know what to do with my hands so i pick at loose threads
it's amazing, you whisper into my lungs,
it's amazing what you see after you've been dead for a while
find a ******* corpse and **** it over again
the spirit never left the body
you can't rebuild a ******* fantasy you can't bring back what was never here in the first place so stop trying
when the knife twists in your abdomen i hope you feel it
you wash me down with whiskey  and smiled as your throat lit itself on fire
you told me that you were like the ******* sun
but i wonder what it felt like for your cigarette ash teeth
and your tar fingertips
when you finally stopped shining

Please keep in mind, I've lost my glasses
and can't see very well right now.
So sorry if I miss your clear annoyance
or mistake your rejection for acceptance.

I can't find my glasses
sorry if I don't make much sense.
Everything's quite blurry
and turned well into nonsense.

And I know the rhyming in this poem
isn't very good at all.
But you see, I've lost my glasses
and can't see very well right now.

if I am the frying pan then you are the fire
in a way you’ve always been my gateway drug
[oh her]
and I’ve always been their gateway to you (we have never
really been that similar) if I am the street lights then
you are the stars (you have always made that one
pretty clear)
I am covered in your footprints
your hair kind of looks like mine
spit on my face and we’ll see if I start to look more like you
[oh it’s you]
we were born in hospitals and since then my infant skin
has felt like plastic in your hands
(I’ll sit down in the dirt to see if I can blend in
with what you say you really love) smile and maybe
I’ll remember
what I really love about the grass growing through the sidewalk
(I remember once you told me you would love me
if I could show you where the sidewalk ends)
if I am the bridge then you are the untamed river
I’m sorry if I couldn’t see below my feet but you never bothered
to look up either
you have always been my gunpowder and I
have always been your bastille (whether you are rogue or royalty
has yet to be determined) you have always said
that I was hollow and I held matches in my teeth hoping
it would prove me volatile
[always you two]
I used to think our bones were the same metal but you’d
be the first to tell me yours was forged in a hotter fire
I think
mine will be harder to break (and we will both be melting
for years) if I am holding their hands then
you are bleeding beneath their feet if I stand alone
then you are standing on their shoulders
(I remember you like charcoal on a cave wall
like a name carved in tree bark
there are sets of your fingerprints next to mine all down
the highway
hold my hand against the dirt and we’ll see
if the heat of battle in the blood red riverbank will be enough
to burn this skin from our bones) we are not friends and
we are never going to be strangers (and more than anything
I am sorry for that)
if I am midnight then you are three am
if I am the sun then you are (not the moon)
arcturus
in a way I’ve always been your gateway
in a way you’ve always been my coup de foudre
[oh this again]
in a way your poetry was always my first love

am i strong am i strong am i strong am i strong will i
will i survive?*
you rub your eyes dry so that no one will know
about the crumpled up tissues that still litter the bathroom floor
the discarded strips of metal shining from their hiding place underneath your bed
(you used to keep fairytales there;
now there are only monsters)
fatality is not in your vocabulary but you might need to put it in soon
you need to know that she will hold you hair for you
while you spit up blood
and she will whisper that it will be alright
even while she digs her fingernails into the small of your back
you need to know that
she is lying to you as she is lying with you she doesn't care she will call you a monster and rip out your ******* lungsbreathe
strength is incalculable
i cannot help you to walk if your legs are broken
{ your lungs are made of tar and you can't remember when it was
the last time you could breathe }
life is too sentimental so you've taught yourself not to feel
but you will still scream
as she rips your teeth out and swallows them
you are speeding too fast for me to follow for anyone to
follow
i don't think you know how to slow down
strength is a chemical weakness i wonder
what pulses through your bones to make them hate you so much
i wonder what you ever did to make her hate you so much
you are train tracks
waiting to be trodden on
strength is not in your vocabulary
and you're pretty sure it never will be
a cigarette dangles carelessly
from chapped lips
your song has never been so discordant.