I taste like heaven and hell.

Like the nightmares you had where you were left in the middle of the ocean.
Drowning
You woke up crying.

Or the one where you watched everyone you loved die.
But
It was you shooting.

I taste like the hidden corners of your closet where you keep your diaries.
With pages filled with how you’d touch me.

I am the burnt sugar on the edge of the pan.
The drops of ice cream that leave your fingers sticky.

Lying on my stomach I remember the way your fingers felt unbuttoning my flesh.
The way your teeth left cursive along my spine
Beckoning me to open like a book that you were never allowed to read.
I will unfold for you with the promise that you will only sign your name in blood
Along the edge of my sanity and only if you take me out of my mind.
I am not looking to lay anywhere except six feet under
Where I can feel your fire without fear of burning myself with your flame.
So I beg you-
Cover me in gasoline
Strike me where you please
And leave your sigil in my ashes.

I felt the Strawberry Moon on your fingertips. You traced it on the palm of my hand. Your magic is different, I felt it, it was softer than I’ve ever been. You touched me and I felt velvet crushed against my skin. I heard my heart stutter your name and then cower against my ribs again. You draped yourself along the lines of my hands and I can’t, I can’t, I can’t seem to let you in. I am an open palm waiting for a knife and my fingers curl against the blade without a fight. But for you, I have melted and left a stain on your skin. I have felt the trace of your fingertips and I wonder if I’ll ever get back to how I was again. Your strawberry rays have captivated me, I swear, I know nothing like you. You wrote your secrets on the palm of my hand but I couldn’t understand the language you left them in.

I was told once that apathy was in my blood.
Climbing like squid ink midnight black through the ocean begging for the forlorn sun.
I have seen atrocities in these veins of mine, calling to the moon for forgiveness, I have howled a hollow cry- it has made my bones crack.
There is no room in these ribs for complacence. For apathy or for those who don't protect the petals of the heart that I wear like a fruit ripe for picking.
I am delicate but I am not hollow. I am full to the brim and I will run my tongue across the dripping pearls of honey which leak from my sides when roses coated in gold ***** me with their thorns.
I am not scared of the weight I must hold to carry these onyx bones.  I am not worried about apathy. I am not worried about the way my blood will curdle when it is tainted with poison or lust or desire. I am not worried about the way that I will sound when my heart is ripped from my chest and held between calloused palms.
I have never worried about the song I will sing when I have nothing left on my lips except the shallow cry I will leave to the world- the one that says
I have loved and I will never have to be enough for you.

I have nimble fingers that creak and crack at the thought of weighted limbs and tangled flesh.
Like the waxing moon pulling off each of my nails-
One by one.
I am scared of climbing with broken hands.
I am versed in lust but love I have only thought of as
dripping
From my tongue after morning tea.
I am not who I think I am at all-
I have always been afraid of lovers who pull the zipper of my flesh.
I am not as naked without my clothes as without my bones.
I have always worn them crooked.

You are tangled memories and oh my god you had your grip on me. You planted your seeds and wrapped your fingers around my ribs and warped the cage that homes my heart, my tragedies. You tangled my flesh and stole my skin and I think that’s a sin- you were always my favorite sin but you lost me oh my god you lost me and you left me in the cemetery to decay in the breeze. You’ve gone and left to find your home in someone else’s veins but you’ll never find bones that break quite the same as the ones that I wear. You were gas stations and memories and cigarette smoke you kissed onto me. You were gin and sin and poetry read in your bed as your flesh was pressed against me. You were rooftops and coffee shops oh my god you were mornings of lazy limbs and tangled trees-you were the nights I couldn’t sleep. You had your chance to be with me and lost your grip and set me free.

Eager flesh finds ways to claw in memories when nails are stripped to the skin.
Find pieces left with torn edges like tragedies but don't let your demons in.

Weave vines through your ribs and roses through your eyes, for this life you'll have to fare.
Cemeteries feel so empty without your bones to bare.

And I beg you to bury the parts of yourself that remain unclean.
I only want your sin if its in between my sheets.

Find yourself among the sea.
(We all know you'd **** to be clean)
You're dissolved memories rotting with purity
Unobstructed details of a killing spree.

You're ragged knots hanging in the tree
Vain attempts at writing new memories.
But god my god, you're too blind to see
Hell is with you in your veins as you sleep.

So bless me, or curse me, really
Whatever's easiest for you.
Your gut wrenching sorrow is getting old, too.

Do me a favor
Just once for me, please.
Count your blessings four by four by four
And with the scripture you hold to the highest degree
Shout to the condemned what exactly it is that you see.

I want it slowly.

Like smoke
Creeping from your chimney.
Like you- a house lived in once but
Abandoned all too quickly.
I want to be those bricks laid
one by one
meticulously.
I want your sin to move me.
I want your bones to break me.

I want it heavy
Like the bags of stone you gave me.
Quartz and onyx or an attempt to save me?
Like you- molten flesh cooled quickly.

I think I would die to have your soul inside me.