A body self-possessed,
self-embraced,
Desperately trying to tear itself apart.
I write like I am trying to **** something.
Metaphors poisoned with memories.
I have always carried my love for this world,
carried all of my harsh words,
carried my horrible reverence for this world.
I write like I am trying to drown something,
To muffle their apologies in love poems.
I confront love just to consume it.
Lazy in the way that only negligence covets.

And then, you.

The way all good poets encounter a muse:
Terrified.
Terrified of your hands, your touch and how much it feels like
A place to hide.
A place to rest.
A place to put my grief down.
For once, I felt myself become gentle.
Your smile cutting glass and leaving scars on my heart,
Don't worry about that damage.
We will count our wounds when it's all over.
We have survived this much,
What would happen if we were to survive more?
Survive love like it is a creator,
Write for life instead of death,
Be able to live without decaying.
Sharing life with you makes life worth writing about.

I've spent a lot of time staring at myself
In the mirror, thinking that
Love looks like sacrifice.
See, where I come from,
Devotion twists itself into ****** forms.
Agony breathing between a lust for heaven or hell,
Misery dripping like blood onto concrete.
Love stains my hands red and the offering is such:
Here lies this contorted body,
Begging you to dismantle it.
Gut me of my delusions and
Carve out my smile to mount on your wall.
Here lies this mutilated body,
Unrecognizable in the face of faithfulness,
Staring into the eyes of adherence like
Its got a gun to my head.
Make me stand to look at this body.
Maybe its my misconstrued fantasies,
I bid myself to Love and it burns.
Take these confessions,
This ******,
Write about it like its poetry
When it reads like atonement.
Here lies this shrine of a body,
I flinch when you cup your hands around my face,
A knife pressed against my throat
Slicing into my mumbled apologies.
I am sorry
I cannot soften the corpse I am becoming.
I've spent a lot of time looking at you,
Thinking that Love may look like resurrection.
Rebirth in your softness.
Here lies this reviving heartbeat of a body,
If I am the sacrificial altar,
Get on your knees and start praying for my resurgence.
I'll see you back when it is bloodless and lifeless,
When its been emptied of its contents and is just the frame
Of our offerings.
I've had Love to die for
Your Love is holy,
Something to live for.

Your love is anarchic like a storm
and gentle like waking up to raindrops on the window.
It is steady, a drumming on the walls of your chest.
You fall in love, and not a breath is wasted
In the absence of a kiss.
Every "goodnight" is drowned
With your hand in mine under the covers,
Because even next to each other is just too far away.
Your love.
I've been here before.
I've felt this downpour
Against your arms, against your heartbeat,
On your lips.
Intimate and domestic moments,
Grabbing my hips,
A hand on the small of my back.
Your love sticks to me like a wet raincoat.
I've been here before,
Watching the clouds roll in as the day gets dark.
Your love.
Something I had tasted and felt and
Died for a thousand times.
I would do it a thousand more.
Like a steady drizzle on my face as I stare towards the sky.
I am praying for rain.
Let the rivers flood.
Let the water wash away all of our hurt.
Let the clouds pour until there is nothing left,
Let me keep your love.

I note the tone of the way you say, "I love you too."
Always with a hint of doubt that I could taste on your tongue.
Like you were tired of me.
Follow up question, are you tired of me yet? Y/N?

2. I stopped paying attention to my paranoia when we slept in strangers beds for five nights straight and
Each time I woke up I felt like I was at home because your arm was wrapped around my waist.

3. How could I tire of you?
And it sounds so real that I want to believe it.
There are a lot of things you don't quite know about me yet,
And one of them is that I always leave first.

4.  Your warm eyes and exhausted smile,
Your mess of curly hair and fumbled words, you angel-shaped human. You absolute godsend.
Afraid to be looked at but begging to be touched/understood/forgiven (circle one).

5. I belong with you no matter how bad I'm feeling.
I decided this late last night (November 22nd).
When you held my head in both hands and said,
"No matter how bad it gets, we can do it together."
And you couldn't even tell how badly I needed those words;
They washed over me like prayer.
Like confession.

6. If I could screenshot life I would do it now,
I'm thinking as I lay in someone else's bed that we are sharing.
If only I could save this moment in a way that is richer than writing it down.
If only you could see yourself how I see you.

7. The way you twirl your hair in your fingers when you're thinking. The way your face lights up when you're excited. The way your smile looks in the morning. The way you kiss me like you're never going to see me again. The way you-
-Are you listening?
Yes.

8. Walking down a busy street,
Walking through a crowded room,
Walking amongst strangers,
Walking anywhere with you feels like coming home.

9. "I love you, too" sounds assured.
Sounds like laying down for the first time after a long day.
Like my favorite song on your lips.
I could hear it a million times over.

10. Sometimes, you are asleep for hours,
And I stay up and talk to the moon.
She tells me about the tide.
And I tell her about you.

"Full license to my heart."
I am dramatically trying to give myself away,
To burden this body less,
This body has so much to carry.
Skin looks different in the glowing light of abuse,
Shoulders heavier,
Mind fuller with worry and sick thoughts,
Sometimes I am crushed and barely breathing beneath it.
It is too much for any one person to carry,
So I am looking to give myself wholly away.
Desperately tearing myself into pieces and gift-wrapping them for you in poetry. In spoken words against your chest. In unspoken words that write themselves down in silence.
Things I won't say: I am so fragile that sometime you hug me and I think you will take the life out of my lungs. Sometimes you sneak up on me and I flinch.
Just barely, just for a second. But it happens. and it hurts.
Sometimes I ask questions in a language you don't understand,
I worry that you're going to shift into him and stop being the you that
Is so understanding and compassionate.
Things I wont say: if you want it, you can take it. You can take what you can balance, what you can hoist up behind you and
Drag against the asphalt as you walk.
You press your forehead against mine,
We let the silence sit in the air-
you are speaking to my heart again.
We will endure this together.
together.

do more than just touch.
this is your permission slip,
my ENTRANCE THIS WAY sign,
all of the arrows pointing to my chest.
to my ribcage that you play a familiar tune on,
to my lungs that gasp for air every night
at 3:30 AM,
to my heart that is a beating thing;
that is a drum, banging on the walls of what
is inside of me.
begging for your hands
draped around my hips in comfort,
in desperation,
in a moment where i didn’t even know
i’ve needed you this whole time.
i am a room.
a vacant room with two doors and no windows.
i’ve been waiting for someone to belong here.
this is me saying, “you belong here.”
this is your resigned silence,
the kiss we share when i can’t get the words out,
the “i love you”s that come in threes because
sometimes i just need to hear it more than once.
sometimes i have to listen to the sound of my own voice in order to understand what i’m trying to say.
that’s why the words drip out and spit themselves onto the floor beneath us.
i am a room.
a vacant room with two doors and no windows.
i take you into this room and say, “do whatever you want.”
and you pull me close.
i take you into this room and say “destroy it,”
and you kiss me.
every room an escape route,
every room is a home if you’re sharing the
bed with the person you love.
i wonder what you’re thinking when you write about me.
i wonder what you’re thinking when you look at me.
i want to be inside of your head so bad that i scare myself away from my own thoughts.
every room has an entrance,
an exit.
this is me holding the door open,
“please, come in. stay a while.”

it’s all very quiet,
very human,
very desperate.
each kiss a promise.
each sentence calculated.
each look lingers.
what are you trying to tell me?
what are we doing to each other?
my mother says i like to destroy everything i touch
like the composure is a foreign language,
tranquility isn’t as good a muse as all of this tragedy.
but you touch me and it isn’t destruction.
in fact, it feels like you’re holding me together
with your finger tips.
i know it must get exhausting,
i’m sorry for all the times i wake you up in a panic.
but i won’t apologize, i won’t hold onto this guilt that
i don’t belong to. i will try to do that for you.
i think i’m writing this poem to tell you
i’d do anything for you.
and you say be careful with big words like that.
promises of forever are currency that can’t be exchanged.
so take my words until i’m flat broke.
until i’m begging on the street.
always, forever, anything, everything.
i’ll sell those words to you for cheap,
if you can find a place to hide them like silver
in an old box. just keep them safe.
i cement these feelings into existence by talking about them.
by writing them down.
i’ll write you a poem every day.
good morning. here’s your coffee and your desperate love poem about leaving and staying and waking up just to kiss each other before we drift back into sleep.
good morning. another morning. i’m glad you’re here. here’s a love poem.
i love you.