you've never looked
at me like
poetry
to you, these broken
pieces are always
so whole
and maybe these shaking
hands really
are all you've ever
wanted to hold

just lend me your
looking-glass and
I'll be alright

no, you can't
have my heart
i forgot where it
is

maybe under my
bed with all the pink
shoes i outgrew not so
long ago or
maybe
with 'Jane Austen'
and the dragon books
on my shelf with
the diamond dust confetti
like morning dew i never
wake up early enough for
maybe between
the pages of poetry, maybe
it drained down my
bathroom sink
maybe i
left it at the back of
your car that last night
i told you i didn't want
to go home
maybe i gave
it away, no, not as
a gift, only just an
afterthought
for the hopeless on
the streets

or maybe i like
it better without
a beating in my
veins, blood needs
no chorus, wouldn't
you agree?

you wear your
heart on your sleeve
because maybe
you like bleeding
with a melody

baby, i don't
wanna sing;
red is better as
paint because music
can't scream color the
way my lungs do
when you hold me close
enough
to hear all the things
you can't say and all
the things that make me
run away

who needs a heart just to
breathe?

there are pretty clouds and there is
hanging fog
the rain is spilling through the
spaces between my fingers
splashing at my feet like the
things you used to say to me
i can't hear you anymore
you're in love again
some other girl some other name
i don't want to hear a single ******* thing
if you're happy why are you watching me
in my familiar misery
it rains wherever i am
you're so lucky you are far away
please don't tell you'll stay
my fingers aren't working right
after clutching onto you so tight
am i supposed to say goodbye
without venom and spite
it's a little difficult, forgive me please
you used to be my anchor
and suddenly
ground shifting, earth quaking
and now you are the reason i can't breathe
underground seventeen feet deep
you didn't save me
you barely even tried

If all these words you speak,
whisper to me when I'm
broken
and barely breathing

They are sweet on the ears
but bitter when whispered
to myself on nights
when you forget
that I'll never heal
and never breathe

I can't help but -

is that pity?


Depend upon
all these stars in the sky,
all these words you forget you ever said,
all these tears that will never fall past my eyes,

you'll be the one i'll
pity.

i am so desperate
to fade into
ashes
and grey
and smoke;
please there is nothing to see

walk through me
i was never here
anyway

there are sparks
of light and of
warmth
that ravage me
inside
happiness?

it is cold again
and the ashes of
me, darker
than the nights i
have forgotten how to
fear

i flee from dawn
in night's stead
black is familiar
and what can be
seen through this smoke?
the reds and oranges and yellows
of sunrise
spear and pierce and terrorize
my ghost eyes

light burns feeling
and life through me -

by dusk
i am only ash
longing to be set
alight once more

you are an old melody
do you remember when you were on
the tip of my tongue, the name singing in my head
a tune i've shoved down my throat
so there is a little silence in my hands
i've forgotten the words
that strung us together
symphonies of destinies i couldn't keep
music is for the musing
for the loved and the loving
for the lucky
my fingers belong crushed into walls
away from harp strings, heartstrings
same ******* thing
i can't hear my heart beat
this quiet won't break me
the way your silence did

You can rip me open,
Cut me into pieces,
Until all I am is the liquid
life,
the red
you say I share with you

I am nothing like
you.

why can't I breathe
anymore?

september air
so stale
and maybe my lungs
are only yearning for
a little october rain

But this ocean in the
sky above me only
bleeds clear poison and precipitation
of dreams that belong to the night
alone -

this stench;
what do they call it?
petrichor

I'd much rather my
lungs wither to nothing
at all

you'll come home one day
wondering how your little first love has
been, wondering how the years have slipped past our hands
and I'll be a thousand more miles away,
waking up to clear skies and falling
asleep to thoughts of how there are blessings
in every word God has said
in every promise I have kept
and I will be alive.

we were a collision of stardust
of soul debris and shy hands afraid to let go
fate is momentum we cannot resist
we are hearts apart now and we will be
years apart the next time you think of me
I'm not waiting, old lover
you are a little habit melody in my head
I'm sorry, I'm forgetting all the words
aren't we lucky?
it's too late for hearts to break

I need more words
to devour -
your i love you's cannot
quench this black
hole for long enough

tell me I am
art and you cannot
tear your eyes
away

tell me I am
the red rain
your veins will
wither without

tell me I am
the inferno your sweet
little matchstick heart
was made to love

your lips never spill
poetry, I know
I know

I like you better
this way;
please
will you tell me
you'll stay?

there were so many stories i wrote
between the lines trembling faintly across my
palms like the roots of trees, desperate
to entangle themselves home
around my wrists

so many stories without you
my lost little muse
i was a poet before you
after you
i can't recall a single word

Last night, you were angry. Tonight, I am tired so tired and I am sick of full stops when these thoughts are always rolling on and on off the pages into these hands that can't hold anything at all

I want to hold myself together so tightly you'd never think about holding me in your warm summer arms because I am strong and i am growing and all I want to tell you is i don't need this anymore

Not yet not yet oh god how long will i have to wait to become something a little less of a dried up shell of a girl who runs into oceans and depths whenever the sea breeze carries the scent of love a little closer how long will i have to wait till i can throw you away

There is a fear don't you know my little love i tell you of it every day and every night in every breath and every sigh I am so ******* terrified

I write about you like you are something from long ago as if I am older and wiser and so very cold but you are now this moment the present I'll never deserve there is so much future out there if you just opened your door can't you see

There is no winter if only you'll leave

sunny days and i'm fading away
maybe you'll hold me some
other time
don't shut your windows to
the rain outside
i told you sunshine doesn't
stay this way
if you can't hear me in thunderstorms
i'm not the summer you
are yearning for

Sometimes I wonder,
If words didn't slip from dry lips onto blank lined paper
And ink didn't fall from my eyes
Swirling into something I could call
Beautiful
For you

Would I write about that boy
Who I thought stole my heart
When I was thirteen
With chocolate boxes that encased my smile
If my heart was something that anyone would ever want to
Steal

Or would I write about another girl
One with freckles and bright eyes
And reddish hair and a laugh that tinkled
In my ears long after she disappeared
The girl that fell apart and fell back together
So many times
I could never count
Only the heartbeats and the broken little sobs
As I held her in the school bathroom,
Twenty minutes into English class,
Whispering, 'God loves you' in her hair

Or another girl, something like a flower
With gentle eyes and gentle smiles and gentle whispers
And gentle little giggles
I should have known better than to
Befriend a flower
I plucked almost all her petals
Before I pricked my fingers on a thorn

Another girl, not a flower
Something of a flame that crackled
Into an inferno whenever my hands
Hit the floor and I couldn't hold it in
Anymore
The burns still hurt from when
Her fire threatened to lick at the
Rain that was long overflowing inside me

That boy though, the one whose digital
Heart I was terrified to hold for too long
Or at all
Would I write about him?
The one who carried rain with him
Toxic rain I would never touch because
The storm was three thousand four hundred and two miles
Away
But maybe I've been splashing on dark, all-consuming
Puddles
Or maybe I dropped my umbrella the minute
I held onto him instead
How can I see the lightning from so far away?
I ran out into the rain just to hold him there
For a second or for a day
Or for the eternity I promised
He was never there.
"Goodbye."
I thought the thunder would be too loud
To hear anything but my heartbeat

I can't write about them
Because weren't you the one
With the most beautiful broken smile
I would ever see
And arms that wrapped around me on
Some godforsaken February day
When my not-so-stolen heart broke itself
Into neat little pieces?

Too bad almost half of those pieces
Lost themselves in you
And I've lost the will
To ever find them again

right now, in this moment, i cannot
breathe; the air in my lungs is endless enjambment and i have forgotten that you are the only whisper stringing my words together into singsong sorrow and
didn't i tell you about them?
girls with eyes soft like morning gold and fingertips softer still no nothing sharp enough to sink into your heart the way sadness does girls with broken words arranged so pretty into poetry girls with nothing to tremble for except all this ******* love i always told you you deserved girls choking on flower nectar down their pretty little throats girls with hearts so light and no rain to hold girls who can breathe

or maybe just girls who write words worth staying for

i am the tornado kind of
misery, thrashing ocean rage
and the wrath of the shrieking
skies
bleeding into sadness
when you catch raindrops
in shaking little palms you hide
back in your pockets because i'm too
scared to hold your hand

you can't bundle me into
your arms and shelter me
from the winter you see outside shattered
windowpanes and creaking haunted
doors
of rooms you lock the madness within
because the madness is inside
there is a clawing in my blood
and darling
it's not singing for your love

it's not singing at all
where is this melody you hear
whenever you want me in your arms
?
what is your heart humming along to
when all i hear is

rain
and oceans and thunderstorms
and hurricanes
can you hear me
my heart?

it's the quiet underneath
it all

i'm sorry
i'm sorry
i'm sorry

i know this emptiness
spills out of my lips into
words that will never make sense
i'm trying to make sense
out of blank pages and aching fingers that shatter
every single thing they touch
i'm trying to let air in my lungs
but they're filled with something
else that's draining the very life out of
me
i'm sorry
i'm just trying to breathe