how many times have i given myself to another being just to keep them around? how many times have i pleased another person just to feel justified for having them be apart of my life. how much of myself is left, i’m dying to know, because with each body that carried me home each night, carried a piece of me when they left the next morning, i am no longer whole. with the emptiness i displace with loneliness, i fill myself up with small gestures, and tiny love stories. with deep breaths, and low moans. the diamond mine between my legs is desolate. hasn’t seen the sparkle of a jewel in years, instead it’s lain dormant. sleeping, yet filled with ghosts, each a name. each a baseball. each falling from my loose glove jaw.

it’s 4:04am and i am laying on a bed of ashes
half burnt cigarettes have formed a sort of nest around me and i’m holding my breath so that the blanket i’ve surrounded myself with has no chance of blowing away
perhaps i should have used the same technique for you, held my breath until a nice shade of purple set in
pressed my lips both shut, and around you
held in each thought i let go so freely in your presence and let it suffocate me like the rest of them

but you felt so different

all it took was a smile and somehow the air in my lungs executed a perfect evacuation plan immediately
easily maneuvering past my panicked attempts to keep it in
grey was my new favorite color ever since you showed up
you splatter painted me in it, each flick of your paintbrush colored a piece of me and she reveled in it
soaked it up and began to bleed drops of rainy days