He told me that heading north in the late summer at seven in the evening was the prettiest time of day

now every time the clock reads seven, I don't think the same way

He told me you fall in love with the city when you tear it apart
so he holds my hand in his glove and teaches me the art
Of how to ruin the beauty in everything
He's putting his fingerprints on every street sign and my name in every swear
so I fall asleep again outside of Logan Square
during the summer cicadas latched onto the heat in the air
but I wouldn't want to be anywhere
but here

I am hiding in the day, I find peace in the disarray
From lying on a queen sized mattress someone threw away
With a sheet I found in my parents basement
I'm wringing the clothe and preserving the lines
So I remember where I was the night I wanted to die
My head is still numb from carrying the weight
My knuckles still white from gripping the gate
So bury me deep, somewhere in the mattress and sheets
and trace me love letters through the tar in the streets
Tomorrow I will watch dusk settle from under the overpass
while I collect dead dandelions and broken glass
the prettiest things I know I **** well deserve
And I spent all summer living with the curtains drawn
so he couldn't see in
And when I finally opened them, I had forgotten how the sun felt on my skin
Happy to feel the warmth I left pass me by my whole life
It took me until autumn to realize how good it felt to feel alive
But
It's too late
Its seven in the evening
And if I think too loud, he will close the curtains again

Twirling the jagged glass between my fingertips, focusing my reflection in the frame
If you knew the things I did to cope, the things I did to feel sane
It would **** you faster than it could ever **** me

My iniquity is timeless
I am surely mindless
I pass on with this storm
Fighting back the icy winds and fatigue to keep me warm
Pulling on this fraying rope that ties me 

To this ritzy view of bliss
Thats anchoring my tired feet to feeling pain like this
It’s just a sickly, sad ending to another nightmare

You want to claim is timed as perfectly as the wind upon your sail
But I keep plunging
Down
Down
Down
And you will follow me down
When your own mast is snapped and it starts flailing towards the ground
I will smile when I dip under, I will bear my teeth and grin
That I died like a coward, but you went on living like this

The storm continues on as the flood remains to pour
And I can’t grasp the fact that I’ve left my heart back on the shore
What I would give to walk on water

What I would give to hold your hand
What I would do to have the devotion it takes to make it back to land
What can I do but cry in agony
As my sinking ship goes down?
Will you hold my soul above the waves
When my body drowns?

I wish I could hate you
The same way you hate me
I wish I could possess your same inner peace

You can't stand that I can't speak when I am
Stressed
Or sad
Or feeling heavy with you

I'm sorry I can be so hard to talk to

We are fireside breathing with your hand on my thigh
I'd smother the sorrows from our sonnets
But the smoke is in my eyes
I'm wrapping twine around my pinky, turning it purple just for fun
Next time you claim you miss me,
know you're not the only one
Because now I don't know how I feel about January nights or sunset views
Or long stares or aubades I wrote for you

I miss me too
And I'm sorry I'm so hard to talk to

I'll break the lines of the smile in your eyes that weep
Now lay your head down
Forget me
Go to sleep

Oh, my muse
My playmate
You silly past time of mine

How irresistible is the tune that you leaving plays
When you squeeze my hand through the car window and beg for me to stay
There's so much more I want to do, and so much more to say
But I'll watch your sad smile stain the mirrors as I drive away

I can't articulate like I want to
But to be honest, I wish you knew
Just how beautifully I still speak about you
How lovely were the days when I would float into your mind
And I would wander undirected through the freckles in your eyes
You'd draw a maze of constellations with your hand along my thigh
And get me lost in your limbs on a cold night in July
I paint this pretty picture of you thats engraved inside his head
So every night, he lies awake before he goes to bed
And pictures how wonderful you must have to be
To have someone as quiet and gray as me
Dancing in the flow of your exhales and thinking about your touch
It's too much
But somehow never quite enough

I miss you and your taste on my lips
And I am about to overthink myself sick
Because I am still more than willing to spill myself into the thick of it
with you
We can lay on your porch like we used to
And talk about the sky and space and I'll give your hand a final squeeze,
While I twirl the grass with my fingers and talk drivel to the breeze,

"What a pity
To be a man
Foolish enough to miss out on me":

If you stopped and asked me to stay again
I would if I knew
That all these years later
I have missed out on you

I still love the way we fill in the dead spaces between us with plastic promises
And silent banter in vain
I don't think I will ever grow tired of it

It's the little things that keep us sane

Doing the most, or not enough
Doing everything and nothing all at once
I always tried so hard to be what you'd need
But it isn't like you and it isn't like me
to be laying in this field on outdated bedsheets
Ive been picking at the embroidered hearts to keep me calm
The threads dance up in the midnight as I catch them in my palm
Our pain has rhythm
And what a beautiful melody we create

Now the skeletons in our closets are moving to our heads
You think I am most beautiful when I am crying over every ugly thing you've said,
But
I am the feet that crush the trees
I am the fist that breaks the earth
I am the wind that blows the waves back where they die into the surf
I am the wrist that takes the strikings and the spine that holds you up
I am the hand that gives and takes from you when you've had enough
From the earth I have come, and to it I return
Each time I fall apart

And you dare tell me I'm not made of art?

You are the last thorn I will cut my hands on, the last rose thrown at my feet
I'll call you any other name and you'd never be as sweet

But you keep calling me sick, baby, keep calling me soft
I couldn't wait to feel the sting when I finally ripped you off

I can taste him in certain air pressures
I can see him through the fog
When it gets too dense, I feel his hands around my neck again

And God, does it feel amazing
How he takes my breath away

There's a small black house that I go into to hide
It’s cold and its dark, but I’m glad that it’s mine
And when the sun goes down, I hear someone talking outside
While I sit by exposed insulation and drink bottles dry
But I use his charm as a chaser that nixes the taste
It blurs my eyesight so I can block out his face
I enjoy the brokenness in everything, because it's my own little space

The ceiling fan makes me anxious and the heater is too loud, but it's a tranquil kind of place
You'd understand if you lived here

It's always before the sun goes down, and before the evening can begin
I beg for his voice to leave but I’m still dying to let him in
But he’s always been such a bad listener
He is just a visitor
And I am still his prisoner
My hands are shaking as I slowly lock the door
And I ******* hate how I can’t hold myself together and keep dropping to the floor
I can’t sleep anymore
Everything I have ever done was done simply because he exists
I’ve got a black and white tattoo of a matchbox on my wrist
For every time I want to burn down this house and he won't let me
For every time I start panicking
but I really don't want to fight
Because every time I think it's bad here, he convinces me it's alright
And I really don't want to make him mad at me again


“Let’s go for a drive”, he tells me as he downs another beer

And I wish I had the nerve to go with him and get out of here,
but I’m drunk again because he keeps leaving bottles in the hallway
And if I left at this time of night, who knows what the voices would say


he’s sliding the car keys under my door