I am in a cage
Sitting in your spacious chest
My wings are still clipped

"YOU WILL LOVE THAT BOY UNTIL THE DAY YOU DIE"

*MY GOD, LET THAT DAY COME SOONER.

Poetry is the way my fingerprints are left smudged across your hipbones
the way your hair curls around my scatterbrained fingers

Poetry is the taste of bitterness your 'I love you' leaves in my mouth
and the venomous words you use to fend mine off  

Poetry is the dead kind of feeling I get only from your eyes that seem so warm,
and the discontent I know all too well

Your poetry will be scrawled all over my life, in the messy ink of all of our memories of the nights we weren't too cold for each others hands.

Who is the cold one?
It is winter in our world
We are hollow trees

I am the tape recorder in your back pocket;

Press my buttons and i will repeat your promises back to you, in the hope that they aren't fully forgotten.

Do you remember the day I told you that your hair smells like home? I don't know what home is. I like to think it's you, but home isn't supposed to be so numb.

I want you to have a special place that you keep the happy memories of me, but i know they're far and few between. Happy memories and you are two things that don't subside together, but I'll always have the day i met your mother, or when you told me you would always be my secret place. You're not so much of a secret now that i write about you, or now that i use you as an excuse, even a weapon.

Sometimes i wonder where my sweet boy is, but i know he's long gone. You used to cry and tell me you wanted to get better, but now you drink all your better parts to sleep, just so they won't acknowledge that this is special to me.

My life is a series of impermanence and
delusions, and you are just another reminder of that. Things are different now, and they'll never get better— but i promise you i will always be there to coax your better parts back to me.

I CROON YOUR NAME IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT SO THAT YOU CURL IN CLOSER TO ME // YOUR TOUCH DISAPPEARED WHEN I WOKE UP // YOU HAVE MADE YOUR BED AND NOW YOU WILL LIE IN IT.

My mother says that you must forgive to be forgiven
But you cannot forgive someone who is not sorry and you cannot be forgiven without admitting you are wrong
Forgiveness is a weak word, one that speaks of resignation, yet another word I cannot stand to say.
Sometimes I pray for the gift of forgiveness, and that is something I hate to admit due to the emptiness I have always found in religion and the depth I have always found in pain
But still I pray for the strength to forgive someone who I will never even give the chance to apologize
And I pray that maybe one day I'll open my eyes and think, "It's alright that I am so angry"
But it is not alright
The anger I am able to harbor can feel so limitless, as if it will seethe under the surface until I can let it go
But no matter how much I pray, God will not tell me how to set my acceptance free
Maybe that is because acceptance can only go so far, or even because I don't have any acceptance to give.

My mother tells me I must forgive to be forgiven
But I prefer to say, "An eye for an eye."

your mouth on my neck
crooning your resignation
like a flooding dam

hands cool to the touch
but he makes me feel so warm
thawing winters frost

Last night I slit my wrist, so that maybe some of you would bleed out of me
And i'd have one last piece to hold on to

But all i was left with, was the red tint of loneliness and my own scatterbrained hands.

The road not taken
I’m basking in your presence
This map leads to you

His hand grips my neck
Steady like a steering wheel
Tell me where to go

Burning in a sweeter version of hell
Your skin smolders, growing into a fire that I didn’t mean to start
But suddenly I’m a pyromaniac that’s coaxing the flame
I know I’m to blame
And I know what they say
But I want to get burned

With my moral compass leading south
And your jaw pressed to my mouth
This price seems so small to pay

The last gave me Tuesday
while she had Wednesday
Now weekends are for me
Each day is a page in the catalog of who I think I’ll be
Do you want a good time girl
Or
Someone who will agree?

he lifts my shirt over my head and the way the material billows reminds me of a white sheet being pulled off of old furniture, as if to protect it’s antiquity from the harsh effect that the world has to offer
his gentle touch does not falter

He said he ***** with what’s in this pretty little head of mine
But he doesn’t know that it’s all him
I wonder if he’s felt the ivy snaking in his brain
It fills mine to the brim
The inside of my skull is like an old castle wall, overgrown with thoughts of you

Walls I can not scale
Still reading me like Braille
I’m spread like a book for you

Beginning breeds loss
This path continues to curve
Still I will follow

Lips meld like butter
A kiss I wish did not end
A soft I love you

Baby; can I call you that?

Winter fell and so did we  
But it didn’t stop the cold
That bloomed in your chest and poured out of your mouth right into my expectant hands
My fingers haven’t really warmed up since
Each season reminds me of you
Summer
Autumn
Winter
And I’m sure Spring will too
You come and go as you please, but I yearn for you each time, so what does that say about me?

Baby; can I call you that?

I know I’m on your mind
At least when you lie to her
But
I wanna know if my name is on your lips when you touch her too
I wanna know if you’re reaching for her
But wishing for something new
Because each time I taste him
All I can think of is you

Baby; can I call you that?

I cant forget the ‘never’ on your lips
But if it’s body on your brain, I can fix that
If it’s the heat of our fingertips you’re thinking of, I miss that
But when I think of you with her I can’t stand it
I’m stuck in the cold begging you to come along with summer
But I’m like a groundhog that always sees it’s shadow  
Bringing extra weeks of winter


Baby; can I call you that?

We’re parallel lines
Going the same direction
But we’ll never meet