your hands are always so cold
and I burn so bright I know I hurt to
touch but I just wanted you to know
that you don't ever have to shiver alone

she texted saying she just smoked
seven in a row and all I'm reading
is **** him for me where does he live
I'll leave his intestines trailing out his
window leave your love letters at the door
oh my god what am i holding back for

i think she likes the bad boys
but i'm just a girl not grunge enough
for you and your leather
i've got paper in my pockets instead
of the cigarettes you're craving
i want to rip it out from your mouth
just quit ******* smoking throw the bottles
away tell me your secrets instead
god i know you'll laugh at me for
writing about you but you're such a flame
light one up for me too
i'll let it burn out as i listen to you
tell me if i am mirror to you too
tell me how i can hate everything about me
and love it all when it's you

my skin is a casket and
my voice is hoarse from calling
myself back to the ocean shore
*please come home, my forgotten soul
how will a corpse breathe on its own?

ask me about my safe place
and i'll tell you about mirrors
three and a half walls is what i remember
a little cracked because you leave the fear
with your shoes at the door, bow before you step in
eyes closed, breathing in
out
rivaling your reflection and rest assured,
you will be stronger than before
i want to write about uniforms pristine and fists clenched and how proud i was of every little step closer to the front line but the strength is in the moments i can count over my knuckles over and over again :
i. red moon scars bisecting the destiny lines i don't care about but look black belt! look how tight my fists are
ii. walking down the street us three brown brown black mothers suddenly in front of their little ones and HYAA! from every third passerby; downtown is so beautiful
iii. sensei's office: trying not to cry because it takes all i have to crawl to the dojo every monday and by the time i'm standing there hands flat by my side the three strips on my brown just aren't good enough, 'thank you for coming today'
iv. third time i have passed out in the past half hour but you're making me get up get up get up spinning hook kick i nearly pass out again because i DID IT
v. ichi nee san **** it's all japanese translating into 'i bully you because you are strong enough today' snap kick, in your face
vi. coming home comparing the bruises my mother is smiling shaking her head and her own is begging us to please just quit
vii. the living room is our own little battleground I'M TRYING TO WATCH THE NEWS GO BREAK YOUR BACKS IN YOUR OWN ROOMS
viii. i have muscles no you can't make me shut up
ix. the morning after: every limb creaking like abandoned warehouse floors but i'm relishing the burning with every turn of my head, stretch of my legs because it aches sweet like valour sweet like brave
x. just the stairs we used to choose the elevator over because yellow belts what do you want from us, just the dread of mondays and thursdays dissolving into bliss in meditation, just my legs dragging me back to war when the rest of me would very much rather be back in bed but it's been an entire week without punching bags and i miss the victory when you hit and the nobility when you miss miss miss and just the burning pride watching my baby brother punch so hard my little sister and her leg flying well above her ahead and just
knowing that i will never ever be afraid

you told me you cared about me

take these pretty words, please
beautiful in poetry, art stains on napkins
left behind on trains when the night ends, whispers
to ceilings in the dark but to me,

this is terror down my spine run run
run i don't want to hear the rest of it
how you'll be there when i can't
breathe PLEASE it's happening already
the fear in every joint screaming escape
when you open your arms wide
how i can tell you everything that keeps me
awake as if my mouth is a faucet
confessional already dripping all over me
as if just you can trust me can
save me
instead of breaking me
as if you've never known how easy
it is to feel safe in a lie

poetry has been eluding me
I'm hunting the words down with blood
stained palms; can't you hear me?
am I bleeding too quietly

my heart holds no names any longer
these are crevices I want to
paint all over again
I want it ***** under my fingernails I want
it greasing my hair I want art crawling up my
arms I want it in the dark in the quiet I want to
be consumed in colors I'm afraid to inhale
devour me, poetry
I am only the lungs
you are the air

we were tangled up in
our shyness, the silence of a forever
so definite, so ours
stretching languidly before us
a promise between the quiet we shared
my fingers were trying
to piece the same old words
into poetry i love you i love you you you
when you said to me

i wouldn't trade you for the world
present tense and lightyears apart
now, she must be a ******* nebula
is her breath stardust all over your neck
her eyes galaxies your own cannot resist
? i was your flower
doyoueverremember,
my precious little love
is she your star?

i think my heart is broken
is it working right
i feel so light, i can't feel
i can't write

it's all a tint of grey these days
poetry tastes so bland when i'm not bleeding
in colour

they've all got silk for voices
measured pauses, pretty words
pain they know how to articulate and there is me
fading into the audience, happy to act
like i've never written a poem
all my life
as if i can listen to their art without
feeling my fingers quiver and resonate to the very words they say written
all over the hands i've hidden away

i like my fists in my pockets,
i like feeling safe
but they are up there naked in the most spiritual way
i can't look any of them in the eye
without hearing the poetry they wear
like a definition of the souls they've learnt
how to chain to the bones they claim to loathe so ******* much

i think of standing up there;
reading the things my fingers have whispered
over paper on nights i can't even remember,
and then i can't breathe
this poetry is my saviour please
words fade faster the louder you speak
my secrets are on paper i don't even keep
why should i trade in the only air i know
how to breathe for pity i'll never deserve?

it's not raining so much
i dreamt of you and i am awake
and i am whole
i traded my art for a little breath in my lungs
i can't write anymore
but i can breathe just fine

you are desperate to become
the stranger you used to be
except i know your
heart better than i know my own
i will paint you
the insides of your soul
tell me where
the strokes are not soft enough
tell me where the colors
are brighter than you are used to
tell me where you see
yourself
do you know who you are?

do you think of me
my name was all your fingers ever held
the thought of us spilling
out of dreams into things that will never be
you are distracted now
without me
you are a liar
if i asked you
who is it that your veins are singing for
who is it that gives you strength when weakness is seeping out of the cracks between our hands
who is it that knows your heart: the quiet little drumbeat when you are broken; the rush the rapids the waterfall when we closed our eyes and imagined a little closer
?

the truth is caught in your throat, i can hear you
choking on the things that you should say - that's okay
here is your heart back
do what you will
and i will be honest for the both of us

here is a memory yet to be:

you;
heart spilling out of hands onto keyboard keys, tongue trapped in butterfly wings and ribcage cracks, head pounding, world stopping
( 'i couldn't get over you'
  'i miss you'
  'i'm still here' )

me;
knuckles red and empty chest, tired feet with no one to run to, swallow the loneliness go on there's no one watching, god these bleeding palms are scarring now, there is daytime sometimes but never when i need the light, i can't even ******* write

'what am i supposed to say?'

it's just a little drizzle on my shoulders now
my hands are empty of yours and
i've never felt so light before
there you are -
side of the road; last month's heartbreak still on your face
hands in pockets and words shoved even deeper
i bring up love
and you bring up how forever was never ours
to claim, except i wanted us more than
the air in my lungs
(i tried to trade one for the other and you
still didn't know what to say)
the poetry i write is stinking
of greyscale rain your hands are the cold
of another girl's and this will be the part where i
walk away

i never saw myself as a city until you
little hometown boy
with lazy quiet saturday morning eyes and i know my highway lips
are only spilling background noise white noise traffic noise
isn't it too loud where my heart is?
why are you still listening? you are fireplace chimney soft little lover and

i'm a hundred miles per hour too far past the exit sign and i can't ******* breathe when i'm going down this fast isn't it perfect because i never even want to aren't you lost yet i am sharp skyline piercing daydream weekend clouds apart there are no curves on the road i'm tearing up for myself no shotgun for you baby this is me falling apart on the side of the street under a storm cloud

loud little girl suddenly so small because the universe is infinite and i'm just a city of angry broken things can you hear the windows shattering i always tell you i'll burn down my apartment one day do you ever remember the **** i say slow motion urban apocalypse is what quivering mirrors show i'm a ******* movie scene when will the credits roll.

are you waiting too? is that why you want me to stay? you watched me throw my heart downtown little ******* gutter soul and i watched you run after it fish it out from my own rotten ribs and hand it back to me with that shy tangled up in mushy midnight memories when i kept you awake look on your face

you and your soft heartbeat hands for a horizon what do i even say i'm always trying to run away i wish i could slow down for you i wish i wish i wish i could be your little hometown girl with softer countryside eyes and freckles mapping all the secret quiet valleys we fall in love in you want to take me home, don't you? you're aching for a forever with me under soft silent sunlight there's no rush when we have true love right but there is there is THERE IS

i have to move or i'll disappear when i'm not angry i'm not alive i am neon you are candlelight i'm choking on glass shard misery earthquake heartbreak about to topple if you unbalance me IT'S SO LOUD IN MY HEAD all you hear is the laughter rippling out of me because trainwreck entertainment is all i know how to be

listen, boy. i love all the gentle nooks and crannies of your heart, how much you worry when i'm alone in the dark, but cities are only pretty when the light fades away, only irresistible from far away

stay where you are and maybe i'll stay

i want to write myself a dynasty
of poetry, intricate and far away from words that come out so wrong and broken
do you understand a thing i say? i'm trying to
spin a tapestry out of my own pain
all this blood is still the same
same color same red
i wish my words weren't as empty as i am

the last time i saw your
face (laughing eyes and silent
goodbyes)
you didn't cry

now you say you don't write anymore
will you say all the words are
caught in your throat
somewhere between a secret
and the truth -
do they really even know
you? from your freckles to your fists
can they read all the words you don't
know how to say
the anger you kept in your hands
and your voice
the anger i kept in
my own since i let you
walk away?

i like the silence
when it's you
you hold your promises in your quiet fists,
i can't ever hear you break
when you hold me, your little
ink spill disaster until
morning quakes the heavens apart
daydreams softening your heartbeat
every night
you tell me you'll stay
only ever half awake

there is strength in all
the things you don't know how to say
i'm listening anyway

you say you've never been so scared before
never wanted to sink your teeth into things you couldn't keep
not like this
chain me to your heartbeat then
anchor this sadness to your bones
but i can't breathe the air in your lungs
you're tearing your veins apart, i know
i know, it's all for me; i feel it in
frantic fingertips and ghosts breathing over
my empty little hands on mornings you
wake up sunlight and me alone, mist shrouding
everything it aches to inhale; i hear the
terror in every word you say
stay hidden in curled little fists i've
never known to cradle in my own

i'm not coming home

there is not much to breathe tonight
not much to say
except that ***** hands and
rotting souls
building a hell of their very own

always
always
get what they deserve

there is sin tainting
every finger of mine
every inch of rotting
skin

where will i find the
strength to hold up my
hands to god tonight

this is somewhere in between
and last night you told
me you couldn't
breathe

i am so lost in sin and things
i should not feel and i can't
breathe i can't breathe
i never ******* meant to
i never meant to steal the air from your lungs
this is a darker kind of thirsty and don't
you see? there is nothing left to inhale anymore

i've been thinking about how prose never comes easy am i the quiet kind of rain
with pauses
for sighing in -
                       between
you know i'm not the
quiet kind of anything
my matchstick fingers always find
the silence you try so
hard to hide inside
and then

and then we are flame
i can't find myself in the ashes anymore

is it so wrong to want someone to keep my pockets are empty of love and i was thinking about how your fingers would have fit but you are a far away that never drifts just a little closer i'm so tired of being the one with glassy eyes and shaking hands and no i'll let the darkness hold me tonight don't worry you never notice anyway i think i am going away you are not who i want to stay for anymore

you are the forever i
think about when the sky
is blue like oceans i don't
dream of drowning
in; when the sun is so bright
i can feel the light trickling
in my bones every time you teach
me how to laugh again
and again until i remember

how hollow i am


flowers won't grow in the dark
even when he promises he
will stay;


i don't think of forever anymore

i. searching for the sun in places too
  cold to touch
  maybe this is why it

ii. hurts like freshwater blood
   spilling out of hands that quake like ocean
   waves; this sea salt
   in my veins should be close enough

iii. he is lazy summer mornings; sweet
    grass and flowers too soft to
    pluck apart on such whims
    ‘will you stay
                    remember me
                    hold me under the sun

iv. when the winter freezes over
    all the warmth i did not deserve?’

v. no;
   my fingers are too cold for
   gardens and for you
   the sun will never shine underneath
   the rainstorms and oceans have always
   belonged to little lost things and
   hearts no one could ever hold

vi. home was a pretty word
    to keep in my empty mouth for so
    long; thank you
    for giving me somewhere
    i wanted to stay

i am an arsonist
and how dare you toss your
own bones into the bonfire
love letters crackling into smoke and emptiness
in the air and your fingers are
aching to play with the ashes in my hair
black and numb is smeared onto
everything i want to touch; your
hands are not
even mine to hold DON’T YOU
dare make firewood out of the
flowers in your heart
all you know is the warmth of
the sun and
if it hurts,


you don’t have to watch
if you just promise me you'll
run when i set myself alight

you dream of me in
flowers and smiles
summer laughter and sea breeze
sighing in every word we whisper to
the sun sinking into the dark;
the world is so very
small

i dream of me even
smaller
a few feet underground
with nonsense etched into the stone
weighing me down;
will you leave me a little summer
pretty little flowers shivering
beneath the cold of the night and the
silence hanging in the air

don't you know
?
i never meant to leave you all alone