i collected glances under my skin

and kept touches inside my bones

i chose to let this grow into something it is not

but at least now i know that there are universes inside me

i’m giving you my permission not to love me

but i will still wake you up tracing “stay” onto your arms

my whole world fell apart

with the dull roar of your whispered breath

we set ourselves on fire

covered our mouths with smoke

and swallowed up thoughts of dying

patiently waiting on the edge

between dreams and sleep

our brains humming with the exhaustion of loving

but never doing anything about it

maybe this shouldn’t bother me anymore

but i’m tired of waking up on my own

you broke me and i just laughed

i kept looking for stars in the city at night but they never showed up

and loving you is looking for something i cannot find

every time you speak to me, you open even more of my wounds

and the hole in my chest rips me in half when you look like that

i think about the times that i wrote your name underneath my skin at night

and the sheets clung to me as i starved for a dream that would take me to you

you were never mine, even as i woke up with my bones screaming inside my body

and i know you could never have reached that deep anyway

you told me all hearts are broken, and that’s before you broke mine

i want to burn like those cigarettes you smoke

light me up and i’ll fade to ashes

cast a silhouette of yourself onto my skin

because i want to feel your edges in the dim light

your languid movements are like a dying language

that we still remember how to speak

your body is a staircase

and i will climb

until i forget what i was running from

i need you to fight against my skin until i remember that i am whole

the things we can’t comprehend

are laughing at us again

my skin is cold like the bathroom floor

how our coursing blood shakes the ground

a fingertip, a cheek away from never parting

there is nothing behind your eyes

you have lost your solidness

and are filled with hollowness and black

i need you so much closer

i fear no fate and carry no secrets

here in this dark and naked place

the gray november sunrise comes

i tear down the stars with my teeth

and whisper your name

hoping that someday

we will find each other there

I wonder how one who lives by the sea
can ever truly believe that love doesn’t exist.
Do you not see the desperation in the way
the waves pound endlessly to the shore?
They crash deliriously on the rocks,
and it reminds me of how I want you:
infintely, eternally, like the stars.

I am so tired of this sick, dysphoric feeling I get in the pit of me,
a dull ache in my bones.
I keep going:
I purse my lips and choke on my flowery words.
I won’t pretend to be a poet anymore.

I’m sorry, but I don’t want you to just love me ironically,
or kiss me sarcastically,
or undress me metaphorically.
I want this to be honest and pure.

I don’t need a love song sung at dawn,
or towers built in my honor.
Sunsets and moonlight are not for you, I understand.
I just want to feel you breathe against me in timed rhythms.
Rise, peak, fall.
I need this.

i’ve spent my whole life waiting for you

feeding for you

bleeding for you

not all cuts bleed, and mine certainly did not

instead they poured out prose

and wrapped around the lies you told me

like ribbons around your neck

curling close to my ribcage

i’m hoping that if all my pens have run dry

from scribbling on napkins and rejection letters

my veins will finally be numbed of you

i am writing these poems with my bones