i.
this a song hell bent on ruining your life. i sing these notes in place of screams. you hear this symphony and assume its for someone else. someone with a backbone of razorblades and scorpion venom hands. but its for you. the boy splitting his nicotine lips into a leer. the boy with a tongue in the shape of a noose. the boy who scorched me to the bone.

ii.
two years older with a body the size of jupiter. i was venus. the stars burst inside of me when you shoved your hand into my orbit. this bedroom floor is a solar system galaxies away from the one you and i run in circles in. in all this confusion i wonder who is the sun.

iii.
everything was cold. december painted us white, left us with cinder block hearts. you drank coffee in the morning. your warmth circled me and I desperately wanted to turn the AC up. but it was winter. a time for decay. isnt this fitting.

iv.
you laughed. forced me to fit into a joke that carved me into an ugly thing. your hands were not meant for art. when you touched me sirens exploded.

v.
fingernails in flesh. four letters being torn from my throat and shoved into a poem. ive written about you before. you are the big bad wolf circling me, snarling at me. i am the prey, gutted like game. you ate me for dinner and threw out the leftovers.

i.
how old were you when you first discovered your heartbeat? when you opened your rib cage to reveal the carnage? how old were you when the vultures circled the roadkill of your wrists? when the sun kissed fire into your eyes? when you shriveled up and died?

ii.
the epidemic got to me before you did. i peeled every layer of skin back for the mirror. there are rubies under my skin. sealed into the flesh of who i am. did you notice this when you took the meat cleaver to my skull?

iii.
when you said ‘never’ i assumed you meant in a week. instead it happened in a day. a flash of lightning. a carton of blueberries. eating dark chocolate on your back porch. you never told me you liked them bitter. you spat out the sweetness of my skin and your saliva burned a whole in the pavement. summer was always my least favorite time of year. now i can’t even stomach winter.

iv.
i forgot how to weave metaphors into tapestries to hang in museums. you have that power over me. the only beautiful thing about you is your frame. i carved it into the statue of David before you could say no. you hate the vain. thats why you hate me. i never tire of looking at what you made of me. i never tire of painting myself into depictions of the Birth of Venus. you only ever called me Venus between the sheets.

v.
if you saw me on the street, would you remember me? would you remember the fly trap curls luring you in? a weak man and a pink skinned temptress playing doctor on the bedroom floor. would you remember the gray cotton ******* you ignored? the blue bra you threw out the window? would you remember the thicket of hair? the violins singing harmonies in the background? would you? would you? would you?

And the cracks in my armor
Bloom like sunflowers.
They’re letting spring in and I think
I’ll be able to breathe again soon.
I don’t know how long winter really was
And at this point
I’m not concerned

Because the air is sweet.
Everything tastes like honey and milk
And I swear
My veins are petals of
Forget-Me-Nots picked in a game of
He loves me not.

Persephone walks with me.
The grays are blues again.
The skeleton trees scratching the sky
Bare fruit once more.
Heavy pomegranates and raspberry melodies
Swirl a vibrant red
Behind my eyes.

April kissed cherry blossoms
Into my bloodstream.
My belly is full of watermelon seeds.
For once
I am welcoming spring
With open wishbone arms,
I don’t even mind the bees.

This guy on Tinder calls me ****.
My skin rolls with repulsion.
You see,
I hate the word ****.
It sounds like a sixth grader
Hopped up on hormones
Made it up to be funny
And I deleted all of middle school
Out of my memory.

I say
‘**** isn’t a word I’d use to define me’.
He asks what word I would use.
I say
‘Weird Hot’.
The fine line between
Tastefully quirky wrapped in cute
And downright strange.
The type of strange
That leaves you with only two friends,
An X-files Poster,
And a cardboard cutout of Harry Styles
That is riddled with
Purple kiss marks.

He says
‘You are weird.
And hot.’
My skin rolls with repulsion once more.
I don’t want him to think I’m hot.
I want him to think me weird.
I want him to tell his friends
“Yo look at this weird ******* tinder.
Her bio is
‘HELP IM STUCK IN A FORTUNE COOKIE FACTORY’”

But no,
To him I am hot.
To him
The quality doesn’t matter
As long as the packaging is pretty.

This pregnant moment,
This long stretch of heavy silence
You and I created
With sweat soaked skin and
Serrated smiles
Is the only thing i have left.
This bundle of forget-me-not,
Lavender sunrise,
Wake me up when the storm hits
Ballroom dance of a relationship
Is what keeps the
Monsters under my bed at bay.

You kissed violets into my hips
And lifted all the
Ugly out of my heart.
You wrote prophecies with your tongue
And let them soak
Into my bones.
Because of you
I am holy.

Because of you
I don’t remember December.
Because of you
Memories of April and May
Play behind my eyes
Like a never ending showreel
And you’re the star.

I don’t want to write poems about other boys.
I want to be pure,
I want to be rung out of the past.
I want your lips on my stomach,
Your hands on my waist,
Feeling the dip of softness,
Feeling the jagged edges of my ribs
Beg to be touched.

I want you to swallow me whole.
Let me be your Jonah,
You can be my whale.
I want my veins to run red
With 4 letters.
I want to wear them around my neck.

This pregnant moment,
This lilac infused euphoria
Keeping me from jumping
Is the reason
Your arms are my safe haven,
Your bed is my home.

I had a dream my teeth fell out
And I woke up talking.
My tongue was thick cotton
And my throat was clogged with ghosts.
I’m always choking on
Bad dreams and lies
Woven like forgotten scripture.
I wish I could repeat the prophecy.

My head is heavy with all the verses
I’ve made for you,
All the carefully crafted stanzas
That I want to write on your back
With my fingernails
While you whisper prayers of ‘yes’.

I want you to paint the Renaissance
With your teeth on my neck.
There is no room for impressionism here.

You turn my
Starry nights into starry days.
You keep me in a starry haze.
I never want to eat yellow paint again.