Little cunning foxes jumping over bushes,
              slaughtering the sheep I have been counting in my sleep.

I hand-pick plump raspberries while I watch the foxes
              rip out their throats, all of our lips stained red & ******.

My hazy sepia toned dream shimmers as I sit in the grass,
              sipping on a glass of arsenic laced strawberry lemonade.

The cool sun hugs my skin and my collarbones
              that jut and cut my finger as I brush a hair off my shoulder.

I look down at the pin ***** absentmindedly and glance
              at my foxes as their black eyes gaze upon me wildly.

Magenta stained muzzles set in stone as they begin to roam
              surrounding the circumference of my skirt, snapping their jaws.

Ebony teeth tearing me like cloth, jerking my body like
              a frail little rag doll dancing with these fiendish, lovely beasts.

They leave me quietly, bones picked nearly clean, waiting now
               for flowers to bloom in my hollow chest and my empty eyes.

A love like pomegranate seeds — I am condemned to a mortal marriage with Death, waiting for his hands to touch me in the winter; I am stuck inside an autumnal equinox, waiting for the spring. My mind is a brothel — filthy and thoughts floating in and out but not looking for any sort of commitment. But you say that my brain is efflorescent and something lovelier than I would believe. There are cities in the palms of my hands, once teeming with life like the Great Barrier Reef, but now moan the silent sounds of desolation within a Chernobyl wasteland; but you are roaming the ashes atop my fingertips like a lost child trying to unearth the memories of her mother beneath the rubble of a shaken faith, despite knowing she was lost forever in the wake of brutal destruction, kicking me left and right as though I were the collapsed mountain of infrastructure in the wake of early September, 2001. I say all this to confirm that I do miss your voice and its fluidity on the phone — I miss your voice even though I know you'll hang up, and I wish I felt that way about living. I only want you to hold my sticky heart like melted candy.  I want you to stop sighing and slumping in your chair like the names of every Holocaust victim is engraved on your eyelids. I want you to smile like an innocent child, for once.

When did I let myself trust
Again?
I thought sure I was just as far away
As ever.
But you never really know something inside out
Until you lose it
And it's the same with people.
You never really know what they truly are
Until you miss whatever that is.
I don't have friends.
I know it looks like I have friends
And a lot of you might even think you are among them
But I don't
I don't have friends.
I stopped talking to my friends.
I stopped way back two years ago,
When I lost everything and nothing could fix it.
And when seeing someone's face who wasn't her didn't hurt me terribly
It was still simply too tiring to have friends at all.
So I stopped talking to them.
Little by little.
They didn't wanna let me go.
Apparently I was pretty great or something.
But they did. They let me go
Because I am great-
At being persistent.
And I persistently pulled away.
And... that was that, really- I didn't have friends.
I had acquaintances.
I had a loose circle of people who I could talk to if I wanted
But who wouldn't miss me all that much if I suddenly bowed out of their lives.
I made a practice of doing just that-
Periodically leaving.
So nobody got used to me enough to like me too much,
Because I didn't have the energy to like them too.
It became that I only gave myself to love,
Not friendship,
Because when I lost love
Even the best of friends became completely invisible to me, hidden behind a haze of pain.
And I figured that must be a sign.
In a lot of ways, I don't do friends.
Or so I thought until today...
But tonight
Tonight I am losing a friend.
She is parting with hugs and promises to keep in touch
And I am sitting on my father's sofa crying
Because I don't remember the last time I cared about anyone I wasn't in love with.
How did I miss this?
When did I start making friends?
How many of them are there?
Will I even know before it's too late?
And why
Do they ever have to leave?

when you run your fingers across my skin
be careful
for I have spent many sleepless nights
stitching myself back together
when people's words cut through me like daggers

and when you brush your lips against mine
be careful
I have so often bled venom from this mouth in my words
And I would hate for you to taste its sting

When you wipe the tear from the corner of my eye
be careful
It is not the last I will shed, there are many more
pricking at my eyelids, itching to be released

When you declare 'I love you' to me
be careful
I have heard it many times, none of which were true
If i hesitate saying it back, know that it is my lack of trust
not your lack of love for me

And when you hold me in your arms
be careful
I am all too likely to shatter, I am but a fragile thing
A bird, if you will; Hold me too tightly
and my little wings will break, hold me too loosely
and I will take flight for fear that pain will follow.