These bones cannot bring themselves to love just yet. The skin draped across this body has yet to find it’s proper position, constantly shifting as if displaced. My heart is 2 inches too far to the left, and I can hear the scraping of muscle against bone with each step I take. My lungs are far too shriveled and haven’t stretched to their great capacity since my first gulp of air. My body is shrinking within itself and a body that is fading from existence cannot be loved.

I want to be ****** back into place. I want someone’s lips to force my soul back into its deteriorating body. I want his body pressing against mine until our hatred and fear cloud the lines between my body and I am no longer concerned with the space we occupy. I want soft sounds to echo from his mouth again and again and again until I have scientifically proven that my body is a solid form that can elicit emotion from another body. I want to feel his pounding hard, writhing form, panting body under mine until my bones can’t hear the sound of their weakness anymore. I want to be ****** until my heart is ****** back to it’s place, my lungs are stretched past their capacity to the point of pain, my bones are broken and regrown in stronger form, my eyes are torn from the inside of my body and forced to see the blurring lines of the exploding universe, my atoms are pushed closer together until my solid form cannot be denied. I want someone’s body to teach mine that it can be wanted in the most obscene, terrifying ways. Maybe then, I’ll forget that shame and hatred have interwoven themselves through my atoms, forcing me to believe that I am not and will never be whole.

Too often careless words of love and assurance slip through lovers’ lips.

Trembling and flushed, able bodies twist to shield their scarred skin,

whispering over and over again,

My beauty. My beauty. My wonderful love.

Desperate lovers that so recklessly have forgotten

that words of love are black canvases.

Beauty is the curve of her hip as his fingers trace the contours of her skin.

Beauty is the unblemished skin on his neck, begging for her touch.

She is beautiful in her strength and hope, laced in her every atom.

He is beautiful in his admiration and inspiration, giving him life.

Misguided lovers, the word “beautiful” by itself is empty. Fill it with color and life. Gently whisper your praises or bellow them into the warm afternoon air. Proclaim your love with vibrant passion, emanating from every touch and kiss. Do not use “beauty” and “love” carefully; release them recklessly and overflowing with audacious devotion. Mold the words to fit your lovers, sheltering them from the hatred and the pain- until there is no doubt of that beauty or love.

See, I love like my arms are frayed rope. Thin fragments of stretched belief keep my body strung together, and the slightest tug will unravel my terrified soul. I love like my atoms are fickle subjects, and my heart is a weak king. I love like my body’s religion is instability, and I’m only waiting for my cells to dissolve in the fear that rushes through my veins.

You love like it’s a battle, your heart being the only true weapon that can wreak havoc. You allow desperate hopes and doubts slip from your lips like they will bloom in the air and find asylum in a being’s arms. You hold hands like you’re a savior, and your lover will drown without the strength of your grip. You love like your body dares to defy the laws of the world. You love like you commanded the stars to deliver this being to your embrace. His atoms were destined to meet yours. Destiny has yet to learn my name.

When our bodies pass and our atoms finally dissipate into the ravaged Earth, the only difference will be this. Your fragments will leave their place reluctantly; they have grown accustomed to thriving in spirited and loved body. My cells will break apart with ease; my body has always been ravaged with gaps and rifts and has long grown tired of holding together worthless fragments.

Sometimes,
    I
find
               that
words
     just
                           don't
     seem
         to
fit.
        Oh,
                  dear.

When you don’t know how to take the first step, plunge into the deep end. Channel your fear down to the peak of your head and take a leap, trusting that the laws of physics will bring you down where you were meant to be.

2. When your chest grows heavy, do not show courtesy to your neighbors by letting your desperate words gently trickle out from your fingertips. Let the syllables erupt from your eager lips until the lines of anger on their faces transform into lines of jealousy and desire. If their passion grows as brave as yours, they will lift their voices to join your own.

3. Keep quiet when your words grow tired. Do not string together syllables to fill the silence; the bitterness in the sound will only spread. Allow silence to trace your skin, settle around your frame, surround your limbs in a warm embrace. Silence is not be feared.

4. If your heart and spine feel like foreign intruders, allow the stars to make your atoms feel like they've found home. They are the only ancestors that can decipher the strange homesickness that wracks your bones on a silent Tuesday night. They are eager to comfort, if only you allow your heart to fall in love with the stained night sky.

5. If you hold your words close, you will notice. Do not be afraid of what you learn; do not be afraid of what the world so eagerly offers. The silence of a starry night, the gentle swaying of towering trees, the vibrant colors of a beautiful sunset, the eager chirping of invisible birds on a Sunday morning- if any phenomenon makes your heart clench then make it your paradise, your bliss, your home.

6. Every being is bursting at the seams with passion. It runs through our bloodstream, fills our lungs, traces our lips, rests on our fingertips. Do not let it escape through the holes that hatred so ruthlessly bore through your body. Allow it to heal the burns.

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 spoke of your love like supernatural force. I struggled to string words together to form proper tribute to this love- the beauty of your love. I sang of a vivid lively love, and I am sorry.

I am sorry I spoke of your love so highly, sang of atoms and stars as I confessed how broken my body is compared to yours. I’m sorry my words slipped from my lips in desperate plea and your fingers did not reach to catch each leaping syllable. I’m sorry I misread desperation as love. I’m sorry I didn't recognize that your love is not love- it is desperation.

So here’s the truth. Your love is slaughter. Your love is gaping body waiting for trusted vulture to feast. Your love is not yours-your love is not love. My body will never be as broken- my heart will never be as weak. This body and soul know a greater love to themselves than you have yet to experience. You mistake this vulture’s gouging for gentle kisses, but I have never mistaken the intent behind my fingertips, the love and respect behind the touches. When this body falls, these atoms will not fall forsaken lost particles- they will be vibrant soldiers glowing before joining their home among the stars.

So here’s my sincere apology to myself. I’m sorry that I declared this body broken after witnessing something I misread as love. I do not want this abusive love-offering my heart and body to men who do not respect it as it should be revered. I do not want a boy’s lingering touch if my name is not a prayer in his mind. I do not want a boy’s lips on mine if he cannot see the universe reflected in my vibrant eyes. I can live with this love that lies in my soul- pulsing, growing, vibrant- until I find someone who will offer me more than scraps. I deserve so much more than scraps.

Lowly sinner, feel the lies slide off your tongue.
Feel the rush of your vile breath, poisoned with curses.
Inhale the stench of your pitiful rotting soul.
Let the growing horrid being within you enroot itself in your mind.
Allow it to spew hatred as it shifts to fit your soul like a glove.
Lowly sinner, this is your home.
This is your spirit hidden within.
This is your triumph.

Lay down, tear your chest cavity open
and lead my fingers to the burned edges of your body,
damaged by your malicious and poisonous thoughts.
As our limbs tangle, let my eyes wander around the crevices in your chest,
each one scarred from your constant battles and wars.
Let our colliding breaths, mingling in the air,
chill your open heart as you show me
how valiantly it beats through your pains and struggles.
Show me the wrinkles on this muscle in your chest
from each time your heart swelled to accommodate the love you felt for others  
and contracted from the lack of it.
Let me peek at your precious soul as your lips on mine
weave tales of your past, your present, and our future.
Before I release three fatal words, let our actions speak for us.

Where your eyes view comfort, my eyes shy away in fear. Those fingertips you wish to lace with yours, as you lay dreaming on your aged duvet, are the embodiment of an age-old prison. Those fingers lacing mine like thick nylon rope laced through fingertips and wrists. Soft voice infused with poison constricting my body with the force of two angered hands closing around my neck. Harsh lips like fists against malleable skin, leaving ***** stains and marks of possession on a once-white canvas that has marred itself beyond recognition. Insincere words spilling from vacant hearts, swearing of a beauty neither can see, yet you consume the words like a holy salvation. What little comfort lies in a body created for the very intention of torture.

Come with me and seek comfort and love from the fabric from which we were created. The comfort of a universe that lies on your very fingertips. The particles in the center of my right thumb created in a deceased star whose light is just now visible to my eager eye, the atoms vibrating on my stark white scalp arriving on my body after travelling farther in the universe than any human eye has witnessed, the pounding molecules rushing through every inch of my body as a thick red liquid originating in the center of the universe (an unimaginably breath-taking home). These particles have touched surfaces the human mind has yet to dream of touching, yet they have chosen this surface- your body- to faithfully support before resuming their flurry of activity. A deeper love than that that can be provided by an insufficient human body.

On nights like these, I get drunk on gently crafted syllables

spilling from a young woman’s lips on a dimly lit stage,

the sputtering stream of words layered by a muted burst of applause.

I wonder whether her thoughts pulled themselves together with ease,

easily folding within themselves into quantifiable amounts,

or whether she had to douse her shame in a drunken stupor before allowing those blunt words to spin from her lips onto the pale bedroom floor.

She carves the very definition of beauty into the air

as her voice rises and falls with disgust and pain to rival the moments of sweet softened whispers of happiness and love.

The very act of speaking turns into an inexplicable art from, making the very atoms of air around those lips grow heavy with implications and suppressed accusations.

Somehow, from those lips, the words **** and **** have never sounded so breath-taking.

I repeat the curses from my own lips as the worlds tumble down onto the pale bedroom floor, and I douse my shame in someone else’s words until I’m drunk enough to feel comfort and power in those four letters.

Somehow, on nights like these, my conscious closes her eyes and allows the shame to wax and wane with each wayward tear, and my heart beats faster hoping that these coarse lips of mine, by some horrid trick of the light, transform into lips like her’s.

The pain rooted and stretched,
reaching for infinity as its branches spread.
The pain blinded my heat and soul,
expanding beyond the depth of my mind.
I gently shaped the fruits of the despair into words,
hanging them from my chest as wind chimes,
and spent my days among the comforting chiming.
The pain is now trapped behind a treacherous wall,
Shielding all the despair and all the precious fruits from my mind.
Safety fills the air and the pain no longer plagues me.
The rancid stench of protected silence spreads,
the wondrous wind chimes cease their music,
and I am left without a Muse.

The wind is rampant- each breath angrier than the last, molten desire swirling, churning rage diving into aching lungs and rattling old bones. Waking dormant ghosts- too long since a haunting, body unsettled, skin too afraid for revolution, the wind is rampant.

The night could have been symphony. The night could have been tired, excited, cold crescendo- movement for the ages, leaving audience breathless, ravaged, robbed, pitiful, burning. But the wind is howling with rage and no harmony or melody was emitted last night and the audience slept soundly in their beds while concert hall laid empty and silent- the wind is rampant still. Howling still.

The coffee is a peaceful body, unlike hostile skin and bones lined with anger- the coffee is momentary creation then years silent. It is Sunday morning ritual, filtered sunlight dancing on coffee table, gentle melody over gentle soothing tongue- but the wind is too rampant and coffee too dark and mouth too bitter and bed too empty and symphony too silent for Sunday morning ritual.

My, how easily the wind blows, how powerful, how rampant. The sky’s jealous flames raining hell on peaceful ritual- perhaps today is more gust than breeze, more fire than stream, more burning than warmth.

In between silken sheets, I am your weapon
to be molded against the horrors of time and society.
Take me to your war.
Let me be your shield against the expectations, the pain, the agony.
Release your frustration in the space where our breaths linger,
bury your worries in between the folds of my skin,
burrow yourself into the world we create with our bodies.
Whether you curl into my arms as a child clings to his mother,
or you violently move my body to a flickering desperate masculinity,
use my limbs as a your blanket of defense.
Rip away these barriers and release everything to me.
Change the world in between four walls.
Forget creating love,
let’s create a ******* revolution.

To the human who bears the marks of an angry partner, the young adult who struggles to humanize the body that others have objectified for so long, and the child whose mind bears the seeds of poisonous hatred waiting with baited breath to burst with life as the offhand comments increase in number. Take the sharpened blade with conviction and place it far from your traitorous fingers. Believe my words, blood pulses through your throbbing veins, not the black ooze of hatred. Your skin will never be a canvas to taint with red. The red will collide with the peaceful cells, and the violence will not be a masterpiece. You are not just a number, you are a ******* gorgeous universe encompassed in mere atoms that strive to do your essence justice. Gather your soldiers and prepare to fight the enemies that make your body an anomaly or your struggle commonplace. Those horrible nights, where only the moon bore witness to the horrors you carved, are not “typical” and should not be a widespread ritual. You are beauty incarnate. I implore you to lace this statements around each particle in your body until your cells sing with conviction, and fight those who have brought you to your knees. You do not belong there.

There is no greater love than that between the united shadows of two entwined lovers.

Perhaps a love for an enemy’s words

comes not from a fickle resolve

but from a devotion to the beauty of language.

My body is stitched together by the beauty of language, foolish hopes and dreams, and seventeen years of slight displacement.
My child-like finger are formed slightly smaller than expected, attempting to catch my tears as they fall from my tired eyes but failing each time.
My heart beats as if placed a few inches too far to the left, pounding against my rib-cage as a constant reminder of the sea of liquid that rushes through my body with each pump and ***** the size of my fist that sits like a ticking bomb.
My lungs are a little too large, taking in all the hope and inspiration that hangs in the air on a silent winter morning but always somehow finding enough space for a poisonous breath of hatred.
My eyes are a little too far apart, greedily marveling in the beauty of a night sky but failing to see the beauty in four limbs and a slightly-larger-than-average torso.
My reflection is a little too weak, burdened with the weight of aging eyes and a young mind and unable to hold the weight of a simple dream.
Seventeen years of displacement, yet it is now that I learn to take my first steps with my slight imperfections.

At times, I forget that my arms are fragments of fraying rope and my cupped fingers are chipped porcelain. My body fools itself among solid beings, only allowing reality to seep through my bones in dead silence.

Your muse was broken bone and cracked spirit but that never quite fit right, did it? Like a smoldering flame that only existed in the corner of your eye- ceasing existence when you turn posed with a bucket of water. Then one day the word atom stuck and you could feel the particles on your skin turn towards the word like the energy it resonated was a kiss from mother's familiar lips. You molded the word into cracked spirit, lonely body, lone mind, liberated soul, and finally whole woman and eventually your eyes stopped seeing gold lining and began fading and now your pen posed over paper reaches anticlimatic endings like whole bodies running towards each other in ecstacy but failing to touch. Words fall from your fingertips but without a muse they don't carry any weight. You're violating laws of physics with your massless words, dear. Loneliness, depression, loneliness, independence, loneliness, self-love, loneliness, self-doubt- how many times can you repeat words before they begin to escape the laws of meaning. A language of gibberish born from your lonely ramblings. When the universe sends you a placeholder next to your body, he will drown in your words and will have to leave to save his soul. That's the only outcome, darling.

Do not touch.

Do not touch.

Do not dare spoil this flawless property, now reborn with a fresh coat of vibrant color. Do not let your fingers dance along the surface, smearing the paint and allowing the grimy former coat underneath to show. You are not a blessing to this structure, you are a curse. You will tear away the new skin, allowing the dark poisoned layer to dominate this body once again. This structure has not been waiting for you, it has been waiting for liberation from the skin that has confined it for so long. After so many years, it has been given the chance to remake itself, to be vibrant, to be free, to be loving, to be adequate, to be extraordinary. Do not ransack its new-found independence.

Wet paint. Do not touch.

Let this paint dry. Let these wounds heal. Allow the new coat to make its way around every atom until each one sings with euphoria. The putrid coat of hatred that once coated this body has been shed. This body is protected now, bound in a steel-enforced suit of acceptance and unapologetic pride.

You must wait for this skin to heal and adapt. You must wait for this coat of paint to dry. Then, and only then, may you touch.

Words begin to form in my fragmented mind, swirl around the base of my neck, flutter across my bare skin, caress each curve, absorb the essence of my body and grow larger with each twist and turn.
They gather in groups and beautiful ensembles, singing glorious tunes.
They race towards my fingertips and my hand twitches in anticipation as I bolt to catch them.

Suddenly, moments before my net reaches its place,
these ensembles flutter off my body, race off my fingers,
and fade into the infinite atmosphere.
I face towards the sky and  breath in deeper to catch the essence of any few remaining,
but all that fills my lungs are the heavier words weighed by their sorrow.
Fragmented words
separated from their companions,
left to dissolve
among the abundance molecules and atoms.

So I bow my head and clutch my net, awaiting the next cluster of delicate, glorious words.

You are merely an indentation on war-torn lands- a fading fingerprint on skin that stretches for miles- but a wonderful one all the same.