i felt it tying weights
to everything that used to matter,
everything that brought me joy.

i looked in the mirror and smiled,
telling myself i was fine.
i looked in the mirror and smiled
at two rows of black soot,
crawling with greedy bugs,
that I used to call pearly-whites.

i felt my nerves and bones and muscles and ligaments
snap apart and wrap themselves
into each other and it hurt so much.

i thought it would never get to me.
i thought one day i would wake up and be okay,
but i never learned how to stop lusting
after dreams not made for me.

and often nights? i -
i’ll have no trouble
it’s the screens that
do me in.

the fallen angel
the lithesome, spent glow
of do-overs
it just
does me in.

i am too possessed
by mercurial vapor
a dead self
at 2 and 3 and 4am
egging on, asking
“keep looking? it’s
somewhere in the archives.
it has to be.”

i promised, i promised
i wouldn’t, i promised
or I’d spend months
years, decades of life
living in the guesswork
the in-betweens
lying in the pathways
between the thought
and the reflex.

i could scroll a whole
lifetime away
in wanting.
it’s the screens that
do me in.

No matter how many times he hurts you
No matter how many times he wrongs you
No matter how many times someone tells you how dangerous he is
You crawl back

You crawl back with a head full of muddled thoughts
Searching for satisfaction
Convinced that he’s your salvation

Each time you lie next to him
In a fitful sleep
Bearing your guilt as he sleeps smugly and soundlessly beside you
Because he knows that no matter how much you fight

You’ll be back

Don't tell me about bad habits
Because you're the bad habit I could've lived without
Don't act like you know me
Because after all this time I still wish I never knew you
Don't tell me about the future I could've had with you
Because our past saw no future

This toxic relationship that we had filled my body with the lava of liquid waste
Blood
And now, I feel like I am suffocated
With the fumes of your polluted mindset of us
When in reality its
Me and You
Separated by only one word
Present

Like twins or an untitled man
Our relationship was an abomination to the gods
A curse to the earth and all that was us, was doomed
My gullibility, was my downfall-like the people of Babylon
Who were selfish and wanted pride-I cut my own wounds and poured coarse salt into them
I still have to wet a cloth with burning spirits
And hide these scars and painful bruises
Because even though you never touched me(which is what i really wanted)
I feel like people can see through me

This toxic relationship that we had made the green-eyed monster real inside of me
And now
I will live my life thinking that there is nothing truthful about being a man
When in reality, it was you
Me, I didn't choose the right man

Thinking that you were my:Even in the rain I would hold the umbrella for you babe
When in reality you were my:Shut up *****, I told you I'm sorry

Like an ancient sarcophagus
You were the shape of callousness
With an outer beauty of humanity
And you showed me confidence
Built my self-esteem
But like Rudy said:When confidence hits the ground it echoes, like sin in a room full of God

But a God I did not know
You were my one true deity
I felt like I was in a paradise
A place called heaven
And to me, hell was just a rumour
But all the time you were here
I didn't realise that every night
I slept beside the devil

Would it be right to say
I miss who I thought you were
Or more accurate to state that
I never knew you

Isn't it funny how events
Fall into place
Like cigarette ashes hitting the page
Each one of us recites our lines
So perfectly in this play called life
But I never had a good memory
So I could never find the right words to say .
An *** in a world full of hang guns
Rapid fire mind with no silencer
A lead tongue with hollowtip fingers
Tried to lead
But just ended blowing everything to pieces
And watched these fools eat it .
Because in a world full of carbon copies
I am oxygen .™

a gross habit
i don't think i'll ever break
picking at my scabs.
when i was younger
my mom would get after me
but i never listened.

and now here i am
23 years old
still pick, pick, picking away.
a cycle.
like a phoenix
sort of.
i guess.
new life in new skin
death when i peel it back.
repeat, repeat, repeat.