hot blood, red cheeks, burnt lips, and smoke incapacitating my lungs, i heave through the fire in my home
clouded judgement, feelings of hopelessness, i run through my home to find a place where i can feel safe to open my eyes
a place where my lungs are free to experience breath without tentative hesitance, where my senses are in allignment
i search for hydration, for a holistic cleansing of the soul, for a second chance to reclaim this home i have been so careless in
when i finally see myself
my sense of sight funnels in and out
has my skin always looked like this?
who let me destroy my home?
there is nothing to put out the fire
my skin revolts against my bone as my pulse laryngeally stabs me in protest of my reluctance to acknowledge the pain
i am ready to give into the flames, to be a soul of light
to transcend the blazing in my heart, in my veins, in my brainwaves, to go through this life, with open, kindled eyes, a fiery spirit
lungs of feathers
making it obvious that i have scars,
because every aspect of my being,
burns.

blue irises bruise my lungs and I’m suffocated by the fact that they have a right to their separateness and have no obligation to exist for me

they were so beautiful that day at the beach and were orchestrated with the sun pouring down onto your cheekbones, illuminating your smile and I just remember feeling so lucky that they shine for me, and only me

it started storming and you held your cotton t-shirt over my head to shield my head from the rain, protecting me from the universe
you looked up at the black sky and I watched you fall in love with the stars and the way they validated your sense of belonging in the universe

the way you held my head in your palms and kissed my damp forehead, blue irises turning black, like the sky, right before you told me goodbye

I look back at that day and think about how strongly I believed that you belonged to me
how the blue effervescence of your eyes, the purple in your veins, the oxygen in your lungs all belonged to
me

how another human being, somehow, was mine to own

but when I felt the pain you left clinging to my soul like a leech, combusting my neuro-pathways, altering my mind like a degenerative psychedelic drug, leaving me battered and worn out

i realized that the only thing I bring into this universe that is mine to keep, that will stay with me until the day I die,
is me
and I don’t know what hurts more

i kissed the reflection of my own lips upon glass, and placed my hand gracefully in my hair, grooming and relaxing my restless, scathed body
i grabbed a lock of hair from the mid-section, watching the hundreds of stragglers begin and end their hopeless journey towards the tiled floor, and collected the strands between my fingers to place them in their designated abyss of uselessness

i looked back into the mirror, acknowledging my own image

today, i said

i pulled my heart off the hanger in my closet, grabbed my lungs from the shelf, and retaught my body the process of living

living, i said, you're still living, whether you like it, or not

my eyes became distracted, inverted, and regressing to a time when i couldn't look pain right in the face, and pain couldn't bare to look at me either.
my lips go cold, void of the warmth provided to them by copious amounts of unconditional self-love. my lips curl, my heart palpitates.

i always used to wonder how someone could swear they loved a person so much that it could **** them, and how it could be possible for a feeling so strong, and so real, to abruptly reach extinction, as if it never even existed in the first place
but as i finally had the strength to look pain in the face,
and pain gathered enough might to do so too,
i realized she's the one i kissed today
in fact,
she's the one i've been kissing and inviting in to recieve my love
everyday

i held your hand, felt the indentations in your skin, traced along veins and thumbed the bristled hairs on your forearms
i never noticed how soft your skin was by nature,
how you exist numb to the universe around you,
hairs aligning conveniently to guard your irreparable tissue,
eyes hollowing toward your skull, sinking in deeper with every interrupted breath

b r e a t h i    n      g
you let the air escape your lungs as our hands grasp hold of each other
inhale, exhale,
r e l e    a      s          e
as your hand embraces gravity and lies lifeless and cold,
i was the only one holding us together
how long have you been gone?

it's not my fault
i had to let go
i had to let go
i had to
i had to
i had to

to be kissed by him is to be trudging along a sidewalk in the midst of November, alone, cold, searching in the solemn for something to put an abrupt stop to your melancholy, and allow the coldness to heal the hot blood flowing from your open wounds,

a light blue car passes by you and it's playing the song you haven't heard since you were fifteen and in love, naive and in love, but feeling the warmth that love brings in every molecule in your body, filling your lungs and oxygenating your blood with familiar rhythmic groupings and effervescent notes  

your head lifts from your chest and the blockage from your ear canals drain and suddenly you can hear sounds that perpetually stimulate your heart strings, tugging and pulling, allowing tears to accumulate and flow through your ducts until your universe is no longer recognizable and in a state of nostalgic, aqueous disarray

you wipe the tears from your eyes,
you open your eyes,
you look into his eyes,
and oh god, you can see.

as i lye on the wrinkled sheets that hug your plushy mattress and your fibrous tissue, i watch as the purple-blue veins vertically lining your forearms branch out, connecting with the arteries in my fingertips, tying in bonded knots and transporting the honey-sweetness of your essence entrancingly with the music in mine

i can feel the soft vibrations from the pulsing of your heart sounding to a beat as delicate as my exhalations that spill out onto your sleeping skin

your lips hold the pitches to my favourite melodies
your eyes have the taste of the most nectarous flower that saturates my stomach with petals and leaves me so full and in my most natural form
i watch as the voice i hear and the skin i touch transforms me into a new being
one unafraid of having a new favourite song
unafraid of the uncertainties of the universe
unafraid of being new
fresh, and new

i see you, and suddenly i remember how to sleep
how to inhale, exhale, then shut my eyes so the world can again fall to subtle ease
i wish to lay on your pillowy, pink lips
your arms, my blanket
you sing to me your words that flow melodically
my heart remembers this lullaby,
my lips flush red, you kiss them as if you have't slept in a million years, and i am comfort
i remember to open my eyes
there you are
please don't fall asleep