Hold me the way Arizonans hang to clouds
during monsoons,
The way bards capture
moments into creation,
The way wings catch air.

Run your fingers over the scars
on my skin you never knew about,
Don't ask,  just feel.

Whisper sweet nothings into my ear,
Make me believe in a better time than now.
Show me
that this
is only
the beginning
to long nights
spent in each other's
breaths,

Breathe me.

Kiss the darkest corners of my mind,
Take it all.
Take the pillows, the mattress,
The clothes,

I only want you.

Replace the noose around my neck
With your arms,
Tell me it'll be okay.
Lie to me.

Life sustains with a flicker,
but lives with a flame.

A noose slips when your feet do,
and a gun fires when there is nothing left
to claim.

That
Self-Made
Noose
Is
Living proof
Of our
Existence.

I try to avoid picking up my pen
And scribbling down every thought that comes to mind
It's near impossible
I wish that I didn't think in poetry
That words people speak didn't just linger in the air
I'm so ******* tired of weary eyes and sleepless nights
Because my brain can't stop dreaming up words
I shake myself awake every hour
I know it's not the drugs or the liquor
Because the first thing I grab is my pen
The second be another glass of whiskey
Or coffee to keep my body happy
I don't like the way my brain works
In fact I don't like anything about me
I used to blame my parents for drowning me in disappointment
But I've come to realize that I'm disappointed in myself
And I'm drowning myself with the anchor I tied around my feet
Hoping that this time it'll be heavy enough to keep me down
If not maybe I should wear a noose around my neck
And see if that works better

I feel it making it's way
through my body
like the shiver I get when you touch me,
or the burning sensation I get
when I'm pouring ***** down my throat;
I feel it making it's way into my heart
and into my lungs
like your love,
or my cigarette smoke;
I feel it tightening it's grasp
around my neck
like your hands,
or my noose;
I feel it killing me
like the cigarettes,
and the *****,
and the love

If love is an art-form,
   I beg you,
      do not choose me.
Do not paint,
   with fingertips tracing my skin,
The colour of your love,
   with the slashes of your paintbrush upon my flesh,
In a torrent of red velvet,
   surging from your screaming veins.
If I lie there in wait, draped over cotton bedsheets,
   I beg you
      do not make me your canvas.
      Do not make me your art
and leave me
                       hanged
                                     for all the world to see
   while you marvel at the beauty
you created.

                                                            *-j.s.