Oftentimes I find my self entranced
in how you'll catch me at a glance
when you first walk through our front door.
Will my leg dangle to the floor
with mischevious intent, my breast
concave inside itself and dressed
translucent in skin, glowing radiant
in what I reflect, a moon grey slate,
from your light source?
A celestial body on its course,
will I eclipse myself in the blinding dark
of an unconscious development
that lends me trembles delicate,
a slumbering lunar element circumvented
by a halo of blonde curls, suspended?
I spend centuries predicting
the me's I have and will depict,
yet it never is as I intend it.
You gravitate to me, unrestricted,
because we find ourselves addicted
to each other's whole, unscripted.

I am tired of looking at my body
as confinement, like a last ditch effort.
the impermanence of being
is the beauty of it.
I displace, upon my skin,
subconscious aggressions creating critical space
in between the me that is now me
and who I used to be:
a bruise placed as a confession
upon the unforgiving curve of my hip
or the marring of my expressions
through abuse over time.
This big event, my singular revival,
is not a realistic thing.
My survival depends upon small changes,
Regular and routine,
that will bring me up to speed again.
to escape the weight of grievances past,
I have to recall what it is I've done right.

Empty breastbone beating,
a cardiovascular cadaver
under siege by ravenous scavengers
feeding off the lack of meaning
in further consuming me,
still rasping weakly,
pleading for a reason
to keep repeating:
fleeting, fleeting, fleeting,
reaching for the feeling I last felt
when my lungs were breathing.

It is as if I have forgotten how to pronounce the words that once defined the curve of my mouth.
I renounce the person I was one second ago, and in a moment I will do so again.
To begin in captivity only breeds a certain wilderness growing restless in the tips of my toes.
I'm not cultivating new evils within a clenched fist or the feeling of his legs tangled in mine.
I'm just breaking in the skin that I once stood hollow in; coming into myself.

Aphrodite always said,
"Love is weak and fleeting."
Persephone always said,
"Don't you dare eat."

Your name
in my mouth
is absinthe
and ambrosia,
twofold.

My stomach revolts at
the rumble of breath
in your chest yet again.
A sweet death,
bitter nonetheless.

I cannot fathom falling
for another mortal man.

i. Destruction

Her iris is ablaze with a subtle kind of anger, but she's still dangerous. Do not wrong someone for too long and expect a softness. You brought this.

ii. Resist

An odd fascination keeps you enraptured by her every movement, no matter how deadly. She strikes the candles flickering overhead to the ground in a moment of rage. The glass shatters and you find this sudden fervency attractive. You want nothing more than to kiss her. Do not kiss her. While you are distracted by those flytrap lips she is willing the bed to catch in a flame and put both of you out of your poorly masked misery.

iii. Ignorance

When something is so white hot it feels cold, the nerve endings under your skin are too shocked to react for a moment. Time flickers by very slowly if you spend it taking and inflicting pain with the people that used to love you and pretending you enjoy it. Take your hand out of the fire, you ******* idiot. You may have lit the wick but what follows has a mind of its own and you should not have started something you never intended to finish. You do not sit around in a burning house because it is the place you grew up in.

this is wobbly steps
in your direction:
learning to walk again.
it is hard to put your trust in men
when the people who raised you
left a mark across your cerebrum
like scar tissue,
murmuring "do not lower
your defenses, darling,
everything is a lie."
my lithe limbs dangle
off the overhang
and i do not jump simply
because i have learned
i am only supposed to fall
if pushed.
the oncoming vehicle
is another issue.
you are gentle in a way
i have not felt before,
and it makes me weak.
give me some time.
i can learn to be sweet.