1) You told me you hated the way my hair fell into my face, so I parted it the other way and cried out apologies, hoping you could at least pretend to like me enough to stay. We drove for hours and although I was shy, I let you touch my thighs. I cried to my mother that night and insisted I wasn't worthy of a boy that would show me respect.

2) You liked girls who wore too much black and looked sad, so I colored my hair three shades darker and stopped smiling at my friends the way I used to. I dressed myself down to black lace in front of you. I still don't think it was enough.

3) You only talked to girls with dark pasts, so I ripped out my insides and laid them on your kitchen table. I think you left because even I was too broken for you to fix.

4) You whispered things in my ear that made me want to cringe, but I giggled at them anyway and fulfilled all your fantasies, wearing red lace this time because you were only captivated by *** appeal and all I wanted was your attention.

5) You drove with your knees because your hands were always occupied by beer bottles and when you offered me one, I remembered all the times I saw my father stumble into the house at 3am and pass out after yelling things he pretended to regret later, but I took one anyways and drank it to try and **** all the butterflies you put in my stomach.

6) You hated the color of my eyes, so I never made eye contact with another boy again. I let you scare me into new insecurities and turn me even colder than your touch.

i love you this morning
it's a come home safe morning
fog on the road
& no seatbelt kind of morning
the sun is over easy
& nothing's on fire
there's punctuation
where i don't want it
and extra love
in the glovebox of my car
been thinking about being honest
how these poems are all me
but they tell the story
how someone else
might believe it happened
within reasonable doubt
no copy & pasted love letters
no 'who ever says hello first gets my attention for the day'
try a little tenderness
in my ears and today
there are instruments
in the back of my head
i think you love me
because i'm sunburned
felt it in a 'come hell or high water' kinda way, that 'touched from far away' kinda way that 'if i touch this piano one more time one of us is going to break' kinda way
and i drove over 17 bridges yesterday and today i'll do it again
and i think nobody gets
what that means except maybe you
i just tell them i love the scenery
that somebody must've made
these trees blush just for me
you know how i love
to change the subject
i bet they'd love the view
i bet you would too
and all these metaphors
for other things are beside the point
this is a metaphor
for why i don't wear my seatbelt
a metaphor for why whiskey
knows me better than you
could ever try to
all the buildings seemed to sag yesterday and all the stars
are doing that cliche thing
where they talk
quiet jet noise
& some lumbering giant
made everything shake
not those hand metaphors
not another one of those
& keep the sea to yourself
i think it was a train
it's sound hugged the embankment
for a moment
and then trailed off into nowhere
and that's kind of like me
how there's a town called 'rescue'
close to my home &
it's no coincidence
that i've never been there

I pressed my lips onto yours so hard I could feel your teeth beneath the flesh. My face was cupped in your hands and we were so delicate. You were a daisy, a daffodil, a sunflower sprouting in my mouth and ******* I didn't realize I swallowed the poison called heartache until seven months later. I'm still scared of losing you although you're already lost and I'm scared of my hair never catching on fire again, but **** it's different when the fire is in your lungs. I can't breathe and I'm suffocating in your scent, and although you're the only one I see in my dreams, you're also who I see in my nightmares. Now you cup every girl's face in your hands and kiss her so hard that she swallows the blood from your chapped lips and you swallow her pride. And as she walks away from you with snakes swimming in her stomach, you smirk at her sister as you feel her freedom sink into your fingertips. You left me with cigarette burns and bourbon lingering on my tongue, and late at night when the moon is as bright as my eyes used to be, I feel the snakes awaken and I scream into my thighs because you poisoned me with this wicked curse of not knowing if my father means it when he says he loves me.

she nearly cried
as she turned her back on
the horizon
because something about
the warmth and texture
that she felt
as she sunk into the sand
reminded her of the way
her body lied on his couch
in his arms.

and there was something
about the way the crisp air
brushed over her lips like he did.
because he was like
a long, electric, gust of wind
that kissed her lips so softly.

so, now he remains in her broken mind
snapping the lose threads
and creating a mess
because he knows he has this
nomadic strength over her soul.
and he knows he is her
darkest muse
singing her lullabies
late in the night
about why she didn't live
up to his expectations
leaving bruises on her frail skin.

and now she cries and apologizes
endlessly to a man
who is only in her mind
because he tied her beliefs
around his pale, veiny finger
to convince her that his ways around satan
are the same we must use to
reach heaven.

~t.s.

you act as if my heart was made of red clay found in the ground

cutting pieces out

molding it to your satisfaction

scratching it and patterning it the way you feel it needs to be

and now you've left it dripping with blood

with battle wounds worse than ever

and you didn't even try to fix the damage you had done    

you destroyed me beautifully

yet i feel so ugly.

come make a masterpiece out of me,

come make a masterpiece.

~t.s.

where the mind began to twitch
all together in the same house
where dying came last
as we aged and as she did too,
so we never left that house.
because mother feared the dangers,
and we didn't have many friends,
we kept our mouths shut,
even when we had much to say.
mother had her expectations,
because we were her kids after all.
"don't mess up,"
never came out of her mouth.
"what a lovely painting,"
i drew and drew
until i reached my stages of madness
because she didn't seem to care
but that's okay
not only was i insane, she was too.

(read from bottom to top now)

~t.s.