I waited for you for as long as I could hold my breath,
And on the verge of death,
I had to let go.

two dead bodies buried in sheets
wrapped in white blankets
wondering, withering
no room for clean air
all has gone stale
I listened for your heart beat
couldn't hear a single sound
locked in your arms now
death sounded scarier
before I knew
loving and dying both feel the same

You carried the scent of a heavy summer rainfall with you
everywhere you went,
dropping hurricanes from your pockets for strangers
who have only known spring showers.
I didn’t know it was possible to fall in love with a storm.
Every time your cloudless eyes met mine
I felt a swell in the back of my throat,
as if I had drank too much seawater and you just kept staring
until I began to cough up the entire
Pacific Ocean.
You told me that this is what it meant to be with you,
to be with a nihilist.
You held other worlds on your fingertips
and slipped them under my tongue,
my blood becoming bellicose within it’s own veins.
The parabola of my pupils stretched until they became quasars,
I had never known energy like this before.
Your lips twitched into a most complacent grin at my lack
of self-possession as I writhed in the rapacious wake of the river.
Everything around me shimmered
with the light of 1,000 stars
and I heard centuries of music in your laughter.
I was a foreigner in a different world.
That night we made love with the intensity
of 50 lightning bolts striking an erupting volcano
and it was the first time you told me you loved me.
It was the only time you meant it.
We anesthetized each other so much
that you became insusceptible
while I became hypersensitive.
You carved kisses into my skin
and they were wonderful
but I was starting to bleed out.
But you couldn’t even feel my nails
as I tried to dig my way into your heart.
I had never wanted to live inside a person so badly,
but you can’t make homes out of people.
You can’t make homes out of addicts.

l am the familiar unfamiliar.
I am a house of bones working as your cage of sorrow.
I am the three o’clock suicide hotline call your mom doesn’t know about.
I am your shallow breathing.
On a clear, cold night I am the emerald flash
Of the dying sun on the ocean.
Blink, and I’ll be gone.
I am the lukewarm coffee you force yourself to finish at the cafe.
Bitter, cold, and disappointing,
But you can’t stop drinking.
You once told me that coffee was the only thing keeping you alive,
So I pulled the plug on the machine.
I am the regret you throw up from your weekend binging routines,
Spilling from your mouth and falling off your lips like lava.
You could never keep me down.
I am Van Gogh, cutting my own ear off
In attempts to get your love.
I didn’t realize that giving it to you meant throwing a piece of myself away.
I am the earthquake that shattered the foundation of Los Angeles
just because I could.
After all, you always said you liked disaster.
On the nights that you actually manage to sleep, I am the spider
That crawls into your mouth.
It’s always been my favorite place to go.
I will love you like a mother loves her unborn child,
Cherishing the sight of blood just because it reminds me of you.
I am the two things you hate the most,
Paper cuts and taxes.
I am the two things you love the most,
Smoking and forgetting.
When you go to light your lucky, I am the kiss
Between the flame and the paper:
Something you only want to do once.
But you don’t have a smokers cough for no reason.
I am the desire in a baby’s grip to hold his mothers hand.
But, I am the mother who never cared.
I am not the tropical showers everyone wishes for,
But the devastating monsoons.
I am the reason storms are named after people.
When the winds are howling and your fingers are blistered with frostbite,
You can count on me to not be there.
Your mother always warned you to wear a seatbelt,
For fear of a collision.
I am the windshield your head crashes through when you don’t listen,
Carving the word
“Guilt”
Into your scalp.
I only wanted to see how your brain worked
When you weren’t thinking of me.
I am the look on your best friends face when he catches you
Sleeping with his girlfriend.
I am the teeth you lose from the punch;
Hide me under a pillow and I’ll disappear.
I am your ravenous drug habit,
Breathe me in enough and I’ll give you a high
You could have never imagined.
I am addiction.
I am withdrawal.
I am the lies of God and the hope for redemption
At your AA meetings.
Talk me up enough and I’ll be truer than your fathers gambling habit.
I am the tears that fall from your grandfathers eyes
When you tell him about the last time you tried to **** yourself.
After all, it was just yesterday.
I am the stones you placed in your pockets
And the icy river you plunged yourself into.

I am not the stranger who saved you.


I will never be the one to save you.