She's an alphabet artist
she paints in words,

from a palette of adjectives,
nouns and verbs,

the landscape she finds
in the folds of her mind

she exhibits in volumes of verse.

i’m afraid that someone will meet my lips and taste stale cereal and close the lid. i’m afraid someone will open my heart and reveal cobwebs and old books about death and that i will have to explain and decorate, apologizing under my breath and they will never feel at home. i crave human affection in every way but i’m afraid my skin feels like sandpaper and my eyes are an abyss of the razors from my past and my tongue is nothing but a loaded gun with bad aim. people want soft grass and dandelions and cotton scented bed sheets and i am a splinter in the fingertip of their love.

i'm afraid i am nothing but a vampire who ***** the life out of anything that looks my way. i'm afraid that my nightmares will become reality and i will be the villain. i'm afraid that my bed will feel like spikes under his back. i'm afraid my demons will begin to haunt him if he gets too close. i'm so afraid that my knives will dull and it will be more painful than i intended. no one wants a destructive person to hold their ******* hand.

i'm afraid that i am none of these things and that my eyes will turn red at midnight. but even more so, i am afraid he will still find me beautiful and that i will **** him.

It's never quite right, he said, the way people look,
the way the music sounds, the way the words are
written.
It's never quite right, he said, all the things we are
taught, all the loves we chase, all the deaths we
die, all the lives we live,
they are never quite right,
they are hardly close to right,
these lives we live
one after the other,
piled there as history,
the waste of the species,
the crushing of the light and the way,
it's not quite right,
it's hardly right at all
he said.

don't I know it? I
answered.

I walked away from the mirror.
it was morning, it was afternoon, it was
night

nothing changed
it was locked in place.
something flashed, something broke, something
remained.

I walked down the stairway and
into it.

In a room sheltered by the passing of the seasons,
Trapped within the tempest of my consciousness,
A forbidden unravels between the two of us,
Like a wistful fragrance, losing itself in the winds.

You asked me to draw my reserved strength,
You sparked my dead empathy.
You spoke to my heart and asked it never to bleed and cry.
And then you left me by myself, alone in the face of my worst enemy, myself.

Today, as I sit under a naked full moon,
As its moonbeams pierce my solitary heart,
With the breeze running over my wounds,
My heart yearns to know where you are.

In order to fend those I loved,
I corrupted myself to become the one thing I hated,
The prey became the predator, lifted his sword,
Yet who can I embrace with my sword raised?

With your sweet words,
With the promise of your mischevious smile,
You lowered my arms.
You brought me back, but you left me alone.

I rest my psyche against the darkness that threatens to overcome my soul,
The fires you lit are long gone.
Sometimes, I think you were a cruel joke,
A jape by fate, to harden my glass heart.

Now, my raised sword serves no good,
A man wielding a sword, yet yielding his will to live,
Protects no one, he only kills.
All I want now is to rest in the embrace of cold death.

I do not know what I want anymore,
Perhaps you left me soul dead.
Nevertheless, i wish to forget,
I wish for your traces on my soul to be erased.
In light of sorrow, the moments of joy you left,
Pierce me harsher than barbed arrows.

Tell me.
How do I erase you from my soul?