to bring back what you love the most. to reach your
hands into the dirt and take it from its resting place, all
the dust you would brush off of its skin.  
i bury my losses in my stomach. i swallow every
grievance and eat loss whole. its not enough
just to lose you. i want to devour you.
to hold everything in your teeth for so long that
it turns into nothing, wet and falling apart against
your tongue. you cant repay what you owe just by
looking at it, just by being there. you have to do more
than just hold it to fix it.
nothing you bring back to life will ever be the same, cracks
form in new places and life grows in the space where your
skull meets the grass. if you lay still for too long, you will
hear the bugs whisper and feel the ground move.
to be reborn in
all of the places you're used to, like a mountain range
changing with every rock that falls.
to be able to look at the same person twice without flinching.
i just want all the things i can't have, my stomach twists when
i think about where you're lying under the pavement. to bring
back what you deserved to have taken away, to get on your
knees and beg for rain to wash this taste out of your mouth.
all the words you would spit up, all the stories you would
tell and bile you would choke on,
to bring back what you love the most.
to look at yourself.
to look at anything in the eyes.

i don’t think I found myself in the poetry, i think i am finding myself in your arms
under the gentle pressure of your fingertips and the velvet embrace of your words.
they think I found myself in the halls of the airport that it walked alone
but
i think i am finding myself in the kitchen of your flat, waiting for the kettle to come to a boil; in cups of tea nursed at the table and I hope that’s okay.
i sip in the same tentative manner that i reach for your hand in the dark; you may have the effervescent beauty of a tree in the autumn but right now i would like to lace my fingers with yours and be human together. i hope that’s okay.
you are like literature and myth; a deep and sprawling spectrum of contradictions and complexities. i feel like teiresias; blind and trapped within my own self-made cocoon of spiralling thoughts.
eyes closed i reach for your hand.
i almost miss my stop on the last train home spilling out sweet words about your everything.
her hair straight out of bed with soft eyes and parted lips, sculpted by aphrodite; carved from the finest marble i want her to pin me down,
to the bed, to reality-
her lips, to guide me
from her waist and back
to sanity. early in the morning
when she wakes up tangled in sheets
with her eyes peeking up over her phone,
soft smile on her lips.
the world stands still in the soft glow of flickering street lights like visible heartbeats, glowing and not glowing in tandem, and the windows are frosted along the edges; worrying a cracked lip between my front teeth i realise this may be the most I have ever thought about tea.
our fingers
tangle, grasp sheets or cheeks rosy
with first-kiss smiles. eyelids
crinkle.
you are butterflies in my stomach, fear and exhilaration, honesty and hope
you are
listening to the same song on repeat; your laugh is the song stuck in my head, every song i’ve ever loved,
the only song i want to listen to.

Someone asked me to draw
Draw what heartbreak looks like
I finally got tired of drawing a broken heart
And I started drawing you

ive been thinking a lot, you know, about being alone. about my body as a vacant room. about the loneliness of a room with someone in it that wishes they were somewhere else. no matter what corner i turn to, every room is empty.
ive been thinking about forming habits, too. about how they say it takes three weeks to develop a habit and four weeks for your skin cells to regenerate. as the days get closer i wonder if my skin will know that you're gone when the clock runs out on the last day. if it will feel like how you touched me before you left in some expulsion of your last traces. if my hands will shake and i will wish you were next to me again, all over me like you're hiding me from the world.
ive been thinking about how you hid me from the world. i get to this part and i stop writing. you asked me to fight everyone with you and start over, you asked me to run away and build from scratch and it sounded like seduction. you made it sound so good, i get to the part where i wanted it and i stop writing.
mostly ive been thinking about being alone, though. because i can't afford to write it down, i can't afford to break this habit. my skin wont know your touch but these words are burned into my hands, and thighs, my neck and face and chest. ive been thinking about your name burned into my chest. stamped, branded and
ive been thinking about if my dying skin cells are going to miss yours, ive been thinking about if youre dying to see me and if your skin itches like mine does. if every room you enter is empty when youre waiting for me to walk through the door like i used to, as it keeps getting closer, you want to keep the skin that knows my touch because its the only part of me you have left.

Don’t fall in love with me.
There are days when I get sad without a reason and I just stare at the ceiling with tears streaming down my face.

Don’t fall in love with me.
On those days, I don’t talk to anyone. I just bury myself in my bed and think about how I became this mess of sadness.

Don’t fall in love with me.
I will become attached to you and I will cry myself to sleep if you don’t text me good night before you go to sleep and I will convince myself that it’s because you got tired of me.

Don’t fall in love with me.
I’m too much. I will depend on you. I need attention, much more than other people. I’ll talk to you in metaphors and make you one. I’ll write poems about you and opening up my skin at 2 A.M.

Don’t fall in love with me.
I couldn’t stand you coming home to find me on the bathroom floor shaking and crying, with blood spilling from my wrists. I couldn’t stand seeing the disappointment in your eyes.

Don’t fall in love with me.
I will pour everything I’ve left of me into you, every bit of love, until I have nothing to give. Until I become completely empty.

Don’t fall in love with me.
I’m scared that my sadness is contagious.

Don’t fall in love with me.
I will replay your sweet words in my head when I hate myself so much that I want to die. Your words will be the only thing that make me stay.

Don’t fall in love with me.
You will live in fear. You won’t be able to leave me, because you’d know if you did, I wouldn’t have anything to live for.

Don’t fall in love with me.
Before I met you, there wasn’t a single person who could’ve made me stay. You’re my reason now.

Don’t fall in love with me.
Because I will fall in love with you.