Am I not pretty enough?

What the **** is pretty anyway?

Do I not workout enough?

Am I not on the same hypes and drugs and drinks as everyone else?

Am I not on the same rollercoaster of routines and work of sleepless drones?

Do I not live fast enough for you?

Am I not forthright enough, demanding enough, shocking enough?

Am I not tall enough, too bulky, too reserved, too quiet, too confused for you?

Too little to be involved with

or too big of a person to begin understanding?


Am I too rigid and formal for you; are you angry I tighten up when

I let you touch me?

Or are you intimated when I make you drip desire all over me

and I make you touch me there?

Am I too sophisticated for you; too intelligent, am I too bothersome?

Am I not a bad girl enough for you? Because you seem to like whatI give you

in the dark.

Do I make too much effort over you?

Do you run away because I fuss and ****** over you when we say we

love each other?

but you pull out too soon for that.


Am I too difficult to comprehend, too broad, too much danger and disaster

and sadness and realism for you to deal with?

Do I not change my ideas, swap decisions enough for you?

Am I not a good little lier?

Am I not good enough in bed?

Or are you worried I’m faking it?

Do I not want you enough? When really, i’m itching all over to have you to myself.

Or are you scared I’ll start using you for *** and desire and

lust

like you do me?

Am I not tattooed or scared or brazen or daring enough?

Do I not try and meet your friends, while you hide them away because I

can’t get too attached?


Do I look too lonely for you?

Am I not needy enough for you?

Do I not party like you?

Do I not make moves like you do?

Do I look beaten and bruised and battered and scared of you?

Because I have every right to be.

Sometimes I need to hit myself with spirits to remind myself how unpredictable

and unbelievably cruel you can be.


You get to slide your eyes all along me when I walk past, on my way home.

You get to ask me questions that are only designed to pry my legs open.

You get to glide your hands around me and daddy me long past bed time.

You get to buy your way in to get me closer.

You get to make your intentions too clear, and no one stops to question you.

You get to wait and watch and steal a glance or graze your fingers up my skirt,

without a flinch.


You get to own me whenever you feel like, send a text or blow a kiss.

And I’ll be a fool to cave in, and be blamed for doing so.

You get to use me for your rough release; i’m left tender and raw and you love seeing it.

You get to push and pry and tease and taunt,

just **** me already so I can cut these ****** strings. It’s all you ever want, even if you

tell me it surely isn’t.

I’m your animal, your toy, your prize and your trophy.


So **** your opinion.

Keep your approval personal.

So **** your designs; your proof I’m dexterous and skilful for being fun, not for

commitment.

Keep your work in storage; placate me and say they’re failures.


So I ask you, am I pretty enough?

Or am I too self aware of your righteous *******?

I’m so scared of what you’ll do to me.

I push you away at the start because I care.

I’m all cold fingers and neck as you inch closer.

I know that giving my heart over to your hands is delicate and dangerous;

I realise having it injured by you is more fatal than another, more blood loss,

more bruises, more painful blossoms.


I always want you nearer; no one can comfort as you can,

until you turn off the lights

for the night

and all I see are abandoned impressions of you around my room.

But I need to stop you. Right here.


I need to keep you an arms length apart from me;

stop you kissing and touching me.

Not because I don’t want you;

I will always reserve a place for you, always part of my dedication.

I want you all over, from head to feet.

But I need to stop myself from falling into the one abyss

I know too well.


I need to prevent you from loving me for a time,

or at all.

To keep you from breaking the blissful illusion I conjure;

to keep you from lying to me about why you can’t love me anymore.

To stop you from taking me over.


To stop you from making me believe you are like all the others before you,

inked and stabbed on my skin like knife cuts.


To keep me from imagining you were never there;

a dream that swirls with reality where it has no place.

To ensure you don’t start picking me apart with your teeth, while I sleep,

and you begin to fade.


I don’t want to meet the same river of conclusions, fussing and moaning and

screaming about the agony as you pull me apart one final time.

Take what you need and run.

Scoop it out like melting ice cream and disappear somewhere out of my reach yet

close enough to invade me again when you need to.


I don’t need to feel this again.

With you of all people.


So.

Stop.

This.

Now.

You have a gift,

my lovely monster.

I get to own you in the dead hours of night,

all mine and rough and ravenous for pounding blood

and heated touches.


Words are putty in your claws,

my lovely shadow, chasing my body, so close.

They are malleable, leaky,

drizzling sweetness and love in sugary promises.

They crack apart when I reach to see if they are real.


Days are completed journeys, changing sides of your heart,

my lovely animal.

Softened heart melting in my fingers, wrapping my body one day

and bruised and brittle red glass leaving blood marks

painting crude patterns and ruptured brutal bursts on beaten skin.


She just doesn’t know how beautiful she is…
Through anything, I need to hear it, I need to be here…
You make me feel like I never have before…
I love you and I need you right now…


My body wants to wrap around you, when the shadows return

to rest along my lonely cold walls.

I devour your words, hungry and lustful, tempting,

the juice and hope of them leaves gloss on my lips.


I remind myself dazed and sleepily to lock your words in today’s box.

They can be shelved; raised and at once forgotten among the other

treasures you give me.

Each day is a new box my dearest monster.

I cradle and store your words like delicate porcelain,

only usable for one single day.

Only clean for one slim moment.


Right now I curl beneath you,

the smell of you stains my skin and littered clothes.

You breathe on me.

Your words are crashing noise; they ring and slice the air,

my head splits and my eyes weep salty remnants of your words.

Cleansed and rid of the filth you breathe into them,

your tongue that slithers through my parted lips, scorching my throat.


Your hands cold and threatening,

I can taste the dusty feelings you shed, like dead skin

flaking away its layers.

The words you mouth just spread ash around me, circles my body

like a dead hearth.

You never meant them.

They cover the frightening parts of you I can finally see-


Rip.

Seams exposed and blood making its slow passage to the floor.

I feel its sticky pool beneath me, my back lies wet and limp in your hand.

A husk bleeding out.


Lead me on and take what’s yours.

My heart. It hurts. It shrivels in the wake of your betrayal.

Stung and stopped,

you crawl off your prey.

Leaving it to be scavenged in the dark to come.


My lovely monster.

Come back.

Music sings out, sobbing in the silence

of a darkened room.

It rises and falls, waves of calm and turmoil,

shared in bursts;

crescendoes of chaos and gentle melodies,

like bridges between tears.


This is where heart-ache resides;

patient and deadly, it waits.

It lurks in crowded corners, along with

all the other sins you make room for.

It makes the music you wish others

could hear, soft murmurs repeating

long into the night.


This is where everything resides.

The dark portions are home to all

your creatures, and all the music

they make;

worn strings and sticky keys.

Jealousy and its drumbeats

paired with dishonest notes and

the jagged shadows of your temptations

and spite.


The room is loud around you, but no one

on the other side of the door can hear

you cry it’s too loud.

They hear a rustle of leaves in a barren night.

Nothing more.


I confess.

I confess I still love you.

I confess I still desire another, and another;

I confess to all these temptations, passions left

sour in my mouth.

I confess to dreaming of you hurt.

I confess to rejecting your body once before,

a one night stand left on pause for days.


I confess to inflicting your words, just like I confess

to feeling bruised and wounded.

I confess to tears, when I see you embrace another.

I confess to tears in the long, cold night; because

I only feel empty at the thought of your name.

I confess to wishing I’d screamed at you, howled

in agony before your eyes as you slipped between my fingers.

I confess to hoping you would admit your scandalous lies,

and confess to knowing you never would be good enough to.


I confess to whispering your name above me,

and being glad I don’t have to bear a response.

I confess to painting your memories in words,

and loving how they float away,

as slippery and fine as silk.

I confess all these things, in your name.

Lost in silent songs,

calling before closed doors.

The prickle of tears before they spill,

uncared for and unknown,

onto the floor.


Never believe the words they speak.

They made me learn to never believe them.

They taught me to fear the words they mouth;

in gentle whispers pressed against lips,

argued or yelled or reminded or prodded,

a strategy in a list of seductive tricks.


I’m never your love, but your conditional toy.

Restricted to a timeframe;

before you get too old for me,

before you get over having me around,

before you cease to care I still have feelings.

The teddy bear that loves unconditionally,

but gets abandoned to dusty boxes deep in the past.

I step forward, you step back.

Try and understand my frustration.


Why must you always seek to lie?

Why must you always be the joker,

and play me like your beloved fool?

You know it’s easy to stop a feeling;

to drown it and stifle it’s cry.

But I only know how deep their roots go;

and how suddenly painful their death can be.


You look, but then you turn away.

You ask, but then you cease to ask.

You beg and persuade, but then you lose patience and stay silent.

You chase, but then you find an easier target to shoot.

You give, but then you realise it’s yours and take it back.

You care, but then you transform it into pity.

You like, but then you doubt it’s real and cool the fire.

You love, but then you know you never could.


I know your words are temporary.

I know they linger in the air between us, and I’m

not supposed to take them.

I’m not supposed to shelve them and trust

they mean what they are.

Likely, they aren’t, nor ever will be.

I know they fill a void, but again, they don’t close wounds.

They heal like stitches, before they only infect you more.


I know you like me.

I know you want me.

I know you say all the things I need you to say,

but I also know you simply shape them to soothe me.

They don’t have substance, or form;

they hover and poke in delicate places.

Lodge themselves like glass shards I don’t notice.


I will always be the physical desire,

the gorgeous thing you like to hold as your own;

but once I learn to love you,

you make it clear I’m only there for the moment.

I’m only there to please and tempt for now.

I’m there to entertain you, when no one else can.


Trying to find you, when you don’t want to be found.

Trying to hide what I feel, because I know you won’t agree.

Trying to mend something, that broke long before we touched it.

Trying to revive fire, when you left it to burn down long before.


All the doors you open, before you lock them shut.

All the lights you switch on, before you cut the wires and leave

me in the dark.

All the places we explore, before you run and leave me stranded.

All the pictures you help me paint, before you burn the canvases.


How am I supposed to trust you again?

How am I supposed to know anything?

How am I to open, when being closed means I at least

don’t have to pick up all your little lies?


Yes I will be your lover for the night.

Yes I can please you and touch all the right places.

Yes I can make you hunger, and realise your starving.

Yes I only expected it to be short-lived, destined to end when

you pack your belongings, and have your final squeeze

before you go.

Yes I know you need to cheer up, and being your private

**** will help.


But in the end, I know where your trail of bread crumbs leads.

It doesn’t lead to a home, nor a heaven, nor a shelter or safety;

but to a bitter, endless path of failures.

Of points I never met, and things I never did for you.


Never believe the words they speak.

Because you can never quite tell when to start to.

Because they are so good at breeding little lies.

And they are so good at conditioning you to believe

all the little nightmares you tell yourself are real.

So goodnight, and try to dream other dreams.

Because a dream with them, is unattainable.