all she ever did
was speak of fading
                             away
                                  into mist
into silence; into things you'll never
hold
again

i am in ashes for too long
oh god i can't even
remember the flame i thought i used to be

there was a fire
but now i'm just coughing
up smoke and cold from the
insides of my bones and i
wish i could just keep a little
warmth within
just enough to breathe a little
more

than whatever this is
crushing my lungs and draining
me so dry
i can't ******* breathe at night
when holding myself
chills me from head to toe and
i'd give anything for a little spark
in my fingers
just until the dawn
just so i can
watch myself set alight

every single ******* night

there is something missing
hiding between words i don't know
how to say
i don't know how to write
this missing away

there is the sad
where poetry is shoved under school
desks and i bleed quietly
onto grid paper between math
tests and lunch breaks
where i lock myself in school bathrooms
and pray that my empty
lungs will last another day
promise myself five hour naps and
isolation in every way
just so a little bit of the empty
drips away

then there is the sad where
sleep is just a ******* dream and
all i can do is try not to scream
as i scribble away nightmares
in the dark, words that will disgust
me when morning comes but
words that save me from
crawling at your feet and
begging you
please will you stay

and then
there is this sad
the quiet, little sad i can barely feel

i can barely *******
feel
anything at all

you're shouting;
i'm freezing

there is a chill caught between
my teeth and trailing up my
shivering arms oh
god you know i can't
breathe when you are spitting
your fire at my feet
and i thought you were the
gentle, the fireplace i wanted to
curl up next to every night until
the frost took me away for the
very last time
right there by your side
warmth i was so terrified of getting
used to because its all so *******
cold

out here where you've
left me to fade away into the
same nothingness, the
same cold i felt under every
shadow of the sun's, everywhere except
when you wrapped me tight
in your arms like
i was a little flower you couldn't bear an
entire winter without

it's always winter in here
the spring never touches my soul
oh god oh god it's so very
cold please
why won't you

let me come home
anymore?

she crushes my hand in hers
bones almost crunching as
the ice in my veins thaws
with my pulse

hers is faster, wild like
the way she does her eyes
black lines smudging into hard
edges every time she cries
but i like the soft of her fingers
as she falls asleep, our hands
a tangle of friends and who are
we kidding you are everything i didn't need
until that very first time you sang
for me and i almost punched your stupid
cheeks because because because

there are no reasons;
just you and my shaking
wrist turning over and your thumb
so gentle on skin i have
only ever dreamed of slashing apart

'there's your pulse, you see?'

and just like that i am
alive again

are you tired of
being the pretty little jar
i keep next to my bed
the one i reach for when
i wish i could trade the coins
under my pillow for a few
more stars to keep by
my side

i'm sorry
i can't read love notes in the dark

how can i forget
how could i ever believe
that  was a thing to
hold and you were a thing to
keep

you look at me
like i am sunset slipping
away
from your fingers like
silk and satin while
my fingers tremble
and quake and ache to be so far
away

you are still looking at me
my fingers curl into
fists crushing petals that
are never there
don't look at me i know
i left the flowers to rot
and wilt among dusty windows
and picture frames three nights ago
i know you wanted the roses
next to the bed or between us
somewhere to remind me of
things you only say when
your arms become shore and
i cannot breathe

they were such pretty little things
pinks and reds and dawn and dusk
did you know? i cradled your roses
to my chest until the scent of
flowers and you
and sweet and kindness and hope and
love became suffocation and memory
of everything you poured into
my thirsty hands that i did not
deserve
everything i watched rain down
my feet through the faultlines cracking
along my palms the way your
gentle fingers would whisper
against mine as you fell asleep with
your head cradling mine and forever
still on your lips

i look back at you
and my fingers are only my
own again and they were such
pretty little things but i am only

*nothing

i was born from
an ocean, tidal wave
crashing background noise and
sizzling foam seashore
rage and salty tears that
burn the back of your
throat on the way down
when you try to sleep but
her seashells are howling
wrath in your ears
so loud your heart gives
in to the moon coaxing
tremors and pieces out
of your bones with every wax
and every wane
until all you are is
shattered crustacean breeze and
unwelcome footsteps bruising the
shoreline every time you
try to scream

i was born from
a man who did not know enough
to cast away his fishing
net far away from a woman
with piranha blood in her veins
and a kraken resting within;
she will tear him
apart
you cannot cage the sea
she has her own rivers and
tributaries like poison
dripping from everything she
hisses at the sky

but i am only the
fire
the gentle, the water in
me has slowly dripped
away until droplets of angry
sun have taken its place
its burning in my
veins
this blood is too dilute
to be set alight this
away
i cannot blame the moon,
sly as she is,
these are no tidal convulsions
i cannot control,
only volcano breath
madness and a thirst for
the burn, the crackle of a
flame of my own
accord

who to blame, who
to blame
she is the sea that howls
endlessly
he is fisherman, trembling as he guts her
away, scale by mirror scale stained
by ****** fingers
that still believe that controlling
nature is what it means to
be man, to deserve woman,
to live and to die underneath
a headstone even the ocean
will dare not touch

and i,
sea salt stings its way through every
inch of my skin
so instead my wildfire heartbeat
thumps lava, desperate to
expel my mother from the
depths of my drowning
lungs

we are not
the same
i don't want her
in me anymore
oh god, why

won't you let me
breathe ashes the
way she breathes
her own sorrow?

i. my mother plays with
   knives
   while i play with the lock
   on the bathroom door
   my hands have stopped
   shaking on
   the doorknob a long
   time ago

ii. some days
    i'd rather be splayed dead
    and ****** on the
    street than walk all
    the way back
    home

iii. she never lets me sleep
      as long as i need;
      can she tell that closing
      my eyes is all it takes to fade
      away from this place

iv. i want to be somewhere
     a million miles away

v. mama,
    please stop screaming
    i can't sleep

i. i wear my anger the way you
   wish i'd kiss you;
   red hot with a little
   teeth but not too much
   smoke because unlike me, you
   want to breathe

ii. i have tried to pour flowers
    lilies and carnations down
    my bloodstream but little
    droplets of dawn keep falling in
    like roses with flames for petals
    and oh god, you know i can't
    resist these thorns
    and neither can you

iii. i am always spitting the sunrise
     back in your face when all you have ever
     given me is sunshine through windows
     that never seem to crack against my
     inferno fists and colors that paint me
     beautiful in every shade except
     this red you know i'll always
     breathe

iv. i know i sleep with palms
      tight and heavy at my side when
      when the glass of your heart
      is cracking like kaleidoscope
      dawn and dusk and everything in
      between
      but you still
      piece my mirror shards together
      again and again until the sky is as clear
      as morning dew

v. as if your skin doesn't burn at
    my touch, as if my wretched anger
    is something you love
    as if holding the wrath of the sun in
    your arms is all the warmth
    you've ever wanted

vi. one day
     i will see that maybe
     you like your sunshine closer than
     i do, at your fingertips,
     no windows in between;
     if you wanted a flower to hold, i know
     my fingers are not soft enough
     and i smell like ashes instead of heaven
     and gratitude and apologies taste the same
     when it comes to girls who'd rather burn
     in your mouth than make you feel warm
     inside
     and god, i know you believe that i am
     the sunlight streaming through
     lonely spaces between fingers that
     try so hard to hold me together
     when this rage is all i'll ever be -

vii. i wish i could say
     i love you
     *too

there are icicles down
my throat that
crumble and fall
apart every time
my teeth shatter and
my fists clench

tell me how long
i will be coughing up
pieces of me;
i am breathing through
teeth that shiver
like graveyard bones
in winter storms and

i can't do this anymore

last night
you held my hands so
tight,
i felt whatever was
left of me seeping
into the warmth of your
hands, as if
trapping my trembling
fingers between your own
would keep my soul with
you too

i will never understand
you hold onto a
ghost halfway gone
hold me close to
you until the
heart in your hands shatters
like you said you would -

i'm not even here anymore

maybe I'm spilling rain all over the wrong kind of parchment god I just can't breathe in any way my heart pumps empty and numb down to my toes and sleep takes me somewhere so far away god I wish I had stayed because without my eyes closed these colors scream too loud in my ears because black is just an intoxication of the silent and the dying don't tell me to stay for you I look in mirrors like you look through car windows cracks are just raindrops that break you apart why couldn't I burn for a little longer fire is salvation you won't recognise but please god I'll make matchsticks out of my fingers just send me some

i. the sun is tearing the night apart
   and you know and he knows
   that you'd rather cling onto the
   the stars in your palm, shyly
   twinkling like the words he is only
   brave enough to whisper when you
   are half awake

ii. no stars in his eyes,
    no galaxies in yours -
    this is only fireplace friendship
    to keep each other warm

iii. this is what you tell yourself
     every morning you wake
     up in his arms

iv. you won't ever lose those stars
     you clutch like diamonds and prayer beads
     or raindrops of crystal gold
     they burn your fingers sometimes
     so you treasure them in your shivering bones
     until they collapse in on your soul
     as if darkness has a weight -
     misery is the only color that can't escape,
     you fill your veins with stardust debris
     and white and white and white
     to compensate an emptiness that
     has no name until you watch
     yourself fall apart like dying embers
     of fires of the heart

v. did you forget?
    these ashes of you,
    all black too

vi. he tells you, no, he
     forces you to rid this habit
     of dropping black holes at your own feet
     he aches to see you asleep on the streets
     when there is always home right where
     he breathes
     but you like it better underneath
     the moon, the stars in your worn-out
     pockets are a little brighter in the dark,
     a little lighter to hold when your fingers
     forget to suffocate and tremble
     the way they have grown used to

vii. the stars are even brighter

viii. when he holds them

ix. with you

x. will it hurt so much if you
    drop one

    only for his
    hand?

My lungs are empty I am choking on air I can't breathe Oh God what will it take to fade away please my hands are so empty without hers to hold and they shook so much when I told her I'd never let her go it's all ******* red this sky was never blue it's just another red only she could name because compass palms and arrow scars on her wrists pointing to the North I could never find because the rain ruined the only map she left behind god why do you let her haunt me like this oh god I left her there at the side of the road because because because sixteen months ago I wrote her poetry at the same time I forgot how to breathe please God let me trade one for the other I don't want her no I just want air in my lungs her rain was too many winters long oh god when will summer come she is so February and I froze in her arms oh god I just wanted one of the stars in her eyes just one just one to keep me warm it's so dark in my head in this hole god these thoughts are not a red I want to see again please this color is painting your name over and over again all I wanted was -

*i thought i'd find you here

this hole is only
my own

stop breathing toxic
sunshine
into my lungs

there is too much
rain within
too much thunder
in my heartbeat
too much lightning
painting my charred bones
white and then,
black again in sick
repetitive monochrome misery
that leaves my rib cage shattered and my
heart
just a ****** mess
at my feet

red stains these
floorboards and the
grayscale in my eyes
seeps just enough color
to make me scream when
I can't sleep

can't you see
that flowers won't grow
where your fingers graze
my skin?

I am only a storm to
run from;
hide behind your clouds
of dreams and smiles
and -
*go away

last january
was colder

instead of morning dew
you woke up with snowflakes in
your tear ducts and
the icicles trickling off your fingers
looked so pretty bleeding rain;

do you remember how your
bones shook like avalanche heartbeats
and how all those broken paintbrushes were
sharper than they looked
at five am with only fireplace
ashes for charcoal and old prose
to keep yourself warm

you have forgotten again -
ice is only cold when
it's crawling up your spine,
ice is only cold when
it's all you'll ever hold,
ice is only cold
when you do not want to breathe
the dawn again

the icicles did not hurt -
these frostbitten nerve endings make
breathing through the numbness almost
as natural as the selfish
sun and the reds and the yellows and the warmth
that will melt the terror in my lungs
into shaking palms
dripping red on tablecloth poetry

the sadness was locked away,
frozen behind my shivering ribcage
and I miss the way this ice felt in
my veins,
almost as if I'd never have to
feel again


how could I forget?
this rain is colder than any
winter I've ever known

god, please
i just want to breathe
in the written and the unsaid
again

teach me
to speak in ink and lines
teach me to
string songs in the silence of the mind
and paint colors in strokes of black
i recognize

i miss tracing rain on paper with the tip of a fountain
pen
i miss painting red at 4 am
i miss hearing thunder at the turn
of a page
i miss screaming truth in margin space

and i miss how these demons are a little
beautiful
when caged between spiral spines
and pretty poetry

i can't muffle this sadness
in pretty words anymore
it screams too loud and
tears apart
all these red-inked pages
with a vengeance of the forgotten
demons don't like to be
denied
and it's january again already
as if rubbing my hands warmer
will melt the icicles lining
my spine
inching up to my collarbone
every day a little colder
god
how am i still alive

there is no beauty in dying this way

you never know where
you're going

if it's your hands on the steering
wheel,
then I'm the one driving you
home

but lately you've been holding me
too close
and you think you can whisper
your smiles in my ear until
I'm wearing my own

but, baby
get your hands off me
and keep your eyes on the road

because my fingers have been shaking
and the map's forgotten under the bed
home isn't the light because
you're not the tunnel
and if I could just stop the car and
pull over -

keep the car
I'll jump off the cliff myself.

i hold myself together with
black stitching stained red
looping in and out of the spaces between fingers
and eyelids shut
and at times,
this needle is not sharp enough;
i cannot sew my shadows into
the background
this tapestry of my sanity
comes undone after dark
it's alright if i unravel,
these demons only play with
yarn and
memories and words strung together in a line
and it's alright if my
hands are suddenly tied behind my back
with twisting thread like blades digging
into flesh
my palms are patterned with rich lovely
red,

please don't
hold my hands so tight

it's alright
i am together
i am whole


and you wonder why it hurts

i. if he is sunshine,
you will flinch when he gets too close
the winter in your bones has never felt
this warmth

ii. four am and your fears will not tear open
your sealed lips like ordered prose; you are
a poem best left bro
                                   ken
into half lines and fading metaphors of rain
on windowpanes and the fire in your
veins

iii. he will not understand a word
you say

iv. but when the rain in your lungs is
bleeding tear stains down his shirt
again,
you forget he is aching to kiss your apologies
away, aching to cage your shaking bones in the light
of his own, to whisper 'i love you' over your skin
again and again as if those words alone
will feed this emptiness inside;
he will never understand

v. sunshine holds you close
and you will wonder if he can hear
your phantom pulse -

*'darling, you're only in love with a
ghost'

fingers clench around
nothing
at all

if only
there was breath to be
caught in my throat

please,
i'm begging these shadows painting tar
in my lungs
won't you let me
breathe?

please don't ask
why my words
are so intent on
chaining your heart
to the nightmares I've
stuffed my pillows
full of
with promises rusting
into blackened iron
links and truths that
would shine better as
lies

I never meant
to cage you
in my dreams -
it's just that my
eyelids solder shut
and I cannot pry my silver
eyelashes apart without
cracking at the faultlines
I forget to mention
whenever I wake up
alone

it's just that my
soul needs more
than a little oiling
more than a little
you
to breathe away this
metal corroding its way into my
tear ducts, dripping rust
down my cheeks,
choking on 'blood oxide'
and mechanical residue
buried underneath my
fingernails

it's just that every
******* 'i love you'
is yet another link
around my finger,
wrenching the life out
of me,
blue shadows engraved
on my skin never shine
like silver in the sun
but if this is the
only clanging chain
of heartbeats echoing
in metal boxes
from me to
you;
what can I do?

it's just that there
was a lock somewhere
along this mess of coils
and chinks and mistakes
but oh god,
when did the rust
between you and I
melt into three thousand
miles of mercury trickling thermometer
poison into everything
we say?
I've lost my keys;
they had sunk first and
I will sink last

it's just that
the clinking thump thump of your heartbeat
is my lullaby;
it's just that
knowing you breathe warmth is enough
to cool the burning silver in my lungs;
it's just that
close to you is the closest I will ever
feel to 'alive'

it's just that
if I can't keep you -

nobody can

you apologise,
'I am bad with words'
but words are all
you are

you build me
home
out of parchment promises;
tangling tiny houses in
a line with your heartstrings;
whispers of 'forever' trailing
from chimney-topped letters,
the smoke fading between
the lines of notebook poetry
skies

I don't belong in your
pretty paper towns

I have never needed
a lighter in my pocket
to set myself alight;
flame is in my veins,
burning slowly through my
bloodstream until open wounds
drip liquid fire and
smoke is all I exhale

your heart might as well
be pumping kerosene -
flammable like
meteorites burning black
holes where clouds and
dreams hang white
against a night of ink
and my scribbled thoughts
scratched out a million times
over, and then once more
until only apologies twinkle in
the sky

you spit your own
wildfires, I forget
you burn villages on your own;
forests of words and thorns
and tangles, blank leaves of
paper fluttering slowly off branches
of kindling wood,
igniting as soon
as the winds against us
are too strong to fight;
off-white flowers
and syllable petals singeing
black;

we are only ashes
*at our feet

my hands shake
too much;
my fingers are unsure
my words trip over
my tongue and die
before I can pry them
past my lips

my hands shake
too much
for poetry

my hands shake
too much
to hold myself
together

august
you hand me your heart
wrapped in crumpled brown paper
and clumsy string tied
around the forever you've
stamped across your palms
over and over until
red ink smudges the tiny, careful
♥
in the corner

but you have forgotten
and i have forgotten
that my fingers are only flame
and my words are just smoke
that fills the void between us
until i can't breathe
and you can't hear me scream

yet i'm holding brown paper anyway
and the string tangled around our hands
is burning slowly
in time to your heartbeat screaming and thrashing
in my fist
and i wish my fingers were smoke
and my words were flame instead

does it hurt to burn
or to inhale
?

this hole is insatiable
blacker every night
sleep flees through
the cracks in my windowpane

it cannot rain outside
when the thunder is from
within

just before the red
of dawn
bleeds and stains and screams
against the night;

my fingers will be
bleeding and staining and screaming
desperate words
that silence themselves
when my ink is dripping
too much red

magic is not crafted from crimson
yet crimson feeds
the howling wolf when the
moon is too blinding and
the sun too bright

crimson keeps the demons at bay
the wretched hole has had
its fill of daybreak misery;

i feel lightening clawing inside
and i bleed again
all the while it thirsts for more

maybe I have burned up
too bright -
                     my nerves are frizzled
                     and frayed

i touch
i fear
i love
           yet this dead pulse is only
           the same

as if the blood in my veins
has frozen midway

there is no heart
to be thawed

there is a wishing well
behind your eyes

and i'm throwing all my coins
all my keys
anything that
clinks
at the bottom of your irises

i'm running out of pennies;
wishing is a game of fools
but

let my heart past your eyelashes
fingers crossed for
the telltale clink
and the ripples you hide when
you blink dreams away

is it not heavy enough?
i will weigh it with a little
more rain;
more rusty coins and
maybe then you'll hear
my heartbeat
clinking
against metallic tears

i know your pupils
are not black holes
like the one i have tucked
away from sight behind my ribcage
but still

i fear that all my coins
and all my keys
are not loud enough
to whisper what i cannot
in this vacuum between us


*please just let me go

how to piece
    yourself whole?
      the black hole between your aching ribs
       is caged in your own delusions
        it doesn't hurt

of course it doesn't ******* hurt


it's only your heart, after all

sometimes my fingers bleed empty
onto lined paper
only to be lost in these words i
fear are caught in my throat
like
a metaphor i can't dig into hard enough
for it to materialize into ink and meaning and
poetry

i don't understand

isn't it dark enough?

every once in a while,
my soul sinks a little deeper
in these blue-black stains
of literate misery

i'm running out of ink.

~

as long as i have
this black canvas
and my broken paintbrush,

i'll never run out of ink.

sometimes all i see is red
and you with your hands up in
surrender

what do you want?
do you want me to tear
you apart?
is that what you
want?

there are minutes, no hours
of the day when the blood
pumping in my veins is destroying
me by the second

i've already torn myself apart
until the rage gives in to surrender
on my knees
and fists still clenching
still itching to destroy you

for still standing there
with your hands in
the air