i am feeling particularly emotionless today
void of any thoughts
other than those focused on my heart beat

i can still here it in my head
only when i am alone in that house
when it is dark outside
and the night is manipulative

every shadow is yours
but none of them are yours

every sound is your voice
but none of them are yours

i am feeling particularly emotionless today
void of any thoughts
other than those focused on your hands

you are splitting me open like
a ripe pomegranate
my back arching beneath you
I am nothing but you
(and come and go and here and upside down)
you say your chest feels like it is exploding
and smile at me half naked in a sweatshirt
sinking into nothingness (everything)
you are garganta do diabo
(my eight year old self feeling a breath of
endlessness for the first time)
and Utah Beach and Mumbai at night
where I am breathless (breathless)
(I am raw here)
twisting my throat splitting
me open like I have never closed up.

There is a difference between holding your breath
And not breathing at all
One takes a lot more effort
One is the product of carrying too much
The other of carrying nothing at all

When I walk into a crowded room
I will hold my breath until my lungs find a reason to relax
My face will flush and I will eye the exits
And I will imagine any possible scenario that would allow me to leave
Which is to say,
I’d rather be in danger than be here

I’d rather be in a secluded single bed hospital room
Than brushing shoulders with conversations that don’t concern me
Smiling uncomfortably to an offensive joke because
You don’t know me enough to know the fire in my bones
That I could ignite and burn you to the ground.

You also don’t know how I wish I could extinguish that
How I burn down everything I touch
How I wish my embers would die down
Lacking oxygen might not be the worst thing

No, being alone in a crowded room wouldn’t either
Saying unironically that I stand alone in a crowded room
As if it has never been said before- might just be
Or maybe my sparks are burning this poem up too
Ruining its changes

You gotta understand,
The thing about fire is
It is a beautiful beast
A chaotic dancer who knows both sides of
Everything beautiful and everything not


In my eyes fire eats its beauty
It eats the life from inside out as it spits remnants of relics
Too tough to melt
So when we are in the flames
Like our salem sisters we think
How can something
so grand
So intriguing
So important
Be burnt down by a people so ignorant
Only to reveal what is truly important
How could you not see that as a compliment

How can you not see that we are all the flames
And that we are all also being eaten by them
As we consume everything around us in turn
And that maybe we just need to catch our breath.

Who am I to blame for this embargo on words
so suddenly placed in my throat
it chokes me
stifling much needed expression even as my fingers jump
from strings to keys
from pen to soundless paper
life has number and pitch
but no definable English syllables or even enunciations
I am at a loss.
For years the ability to relate chaos and joy
to little notebooks and folders has been an escape
but it is a trap in itself
when there are no words to describe
that which I feel.
Breathless
I am breathless as I pace
aching to turn back the hands of the clock
and regain lost time
lost life wasted when I was a child playing a role
playing a game
breathless is the sensation
that feeds the euphoria of dreaming with eyes wide open
and never needing to wake up to reality
because they have become one and the same
I may be without words
but for better or worse I am chained to these hands
and this heart which can learn
to speak without a sound.

Trace your finger down my spine,
copy my bones,
memorize their brittle notches,
remember the breath under them swells for you.

I loved you in my dreams,
but my life has other plans.

You make me breathless, but please put your hands around my throat and choke so I can at least enjoy you slowly killing me.

Kiss me so deep
That I forget what it is to breathe...

Let me taste the sweet sins of your soft lips
Map out every inch of my bare skin
Let me get lost in the music
of your body against mine
Until the earth starts to shake and spin

Because if tonight's all we have
Then darling make me all yours
Don't think about the future and what's past

Because when the sun betrays us in the morning
This perfect illusion will disappear
Don't worry we both knew we wouldn't last

But if there's one thing I know for sure
It's the fact that I'll forever be marked yours
And the memories of you will keep me breathless.
So until we meet again, my poisonous old friend
Kiss me with your toxic lips once more