Pain wracks my fragile bones.
Everything hurts me,
So please, please don't
Come close or touch me.

I can't look at my body
Because it isn't what I want.
I know it's selfish, you see,
But it's a paper without a font.

My skin is a tapestry of
Beauty and pretty and all
In the perfect girl you'd love,
But guys: absolutely appalled.

Nothing matched on me-
I'm the missing left sock,
My bones' rattle is all I'll be
Until I take the final walk.

it's 3 am again;
and you're still not here.

I will never have the privilege to call you mine.
I will never hold you in my arms.
I will never kiss you.
I will never have those long talks in the middle of the night with you.
I will never wake up laying next to you.
I will see you being happy without me.
With someone that isn’t me.
And I just have to accept that we were never meant to be.

The warmth that lingers in the air
One thought swimming around in my mind.

She walks like driftwood floating ashore
Ever so still, ever so ethereal.

All I can think of is you.

You whisper only love and tenderness to me
I wish you wouldn't cry, that is all it really takes.

What do you dream of in nights like these?
The serene expression on your face melting in the middle of the humid evening.

I wish I could give you what you need.

My reflection swirls and shifts through the dark sealed windows
You hold onto me for fear that I will leave
And you are right.

Please let me go.
let me go.
I am not what you need.

The air in my lungs weighs me down
Your tears dance in the street lights.
I can only wipe them back but for how long?

You are all I can think about.

The way your warmth leaves me feeling cold
As the static in the background fills my brain.

Blue light bounces off of my eyes
I cannot make you happy.

You hold onto me with such resolve
Such need, how will I ever leave?
Not even for a quick three AM rinse.
I want to know what you dream of.

I guess its just another one of those midsummer nights.

I crash back into the mattress, your cold hands soothing me
You are all I can think about now
The only thing within my limited vision
It hurts me.

But its probably just the heat getting to me.

-Kore

The safest place in the world is my front porch at 3 in the morning some hot July.

Where I’m from, the heat never has a chance to leave you. It curdles the starlight. You breathe it in like when you were 8 years old and stuck your face too close to an easy bake oven.

Out here, the world is only as quiet as it needs to be. You learn to recognize each streetlight by their own glow.

Soon enough, it will be time to walk back inside.

Push back black bath of sleep;
I have these 3 am shakes.
I hear the water skin
moving in the next room,
drops of cotton coil to cold leg,
& salt lamp cracks on,
pink broadcast against the hour.
Dreams retreat on the board;
the moon swims in the frost.
Where are you?

i spent sleepless nights alone in my bed,
caccooned in white sheets
reaching
for you,
resting my fingertips on myself in an
attempt to mimic what you may do
if you were here.

not out of lust but
longing for you
and your touch,
your presence,
your
scent,
your gaze.

without your body, soft but solid
and your petal-veined skin

hr.