Fat.
The word falls from your lips
like venom.
I know your throat burns every time
you say it.
I see the tears you try to brush off.
Fat.
Because what could be worse, right?
You could be mean,
or selfish,
or violent.
But no, you had to be
Fat.
If only you knew the years I've spent
learning to love every single inch of me,
teaching myself that "fat" is not a
curse word.
Years spent undoing long nights
that I've stayed awake,
sobbing,
praying to every god I knew
that I could wake up and be
skinny.
You tell me I am beautiful.
You promise me
that you have eyes for
no one else.
But I know your eyes lust for
thin.

Drowning wouldn't be
awful. Holding your breath,
trying to stay alive - that's the
killer. But after that? Darkness,
silence. Calm. Peaceful actually.
Not so bad.

Burning. Just a warm hug.
A warm hug that doesn't want
to stop hugging. Imagine something
loving you that much?

How about a bullet?
Straight into the bullseye
you've painted on
your head. So quick.
Less painful than the life
that you're convinced you're
not really living. Messy though.

I still chose life.
I will always choose
to keep living.

Treatable, but
incurable.
Take one pill twice a day,
probably for the rest of your life.
There's no guarantee
on how many days, months, years
you've got left.
You could feel fine one week,
then have Death on speed dial the next.
Of course, they tell you the
survival rate is very high.
So you sit there in the dark,
but hey, you're alive, right?
The doctors don't use the word 'terminal'
when diagnosing you.
But, then again, they don't have to.

I reach for your hand
and I feel the pressure of
your fingers against mine.
But there is no warmth
from your presence.
I look to your face and
I do not recognize those eyes.
Someone I knew so well
has become a stranger;
an empty body who bears
your name.
Please tell me how
I could have lost you
while you have been right
by my side.

I breathe you in
like smoke.
You settle in my lungs,
my veins,
my soul.
I touch you
and I see things
no one else has seen.
You raise your feathered wings
and wrap me
in ecstasy.
You wipe away the rust
that covers me
from years spent living
in my own rain.
Every kiss is never
enough.
Every look is always too
short.
You've brought down the Heavens
and made a home for just us.
I pick the feathers from my hair
and make a crown fit for a Queen.
I will spend the rest of my life
learning to fly
by your side.

I’m sorry if

My words aren’t always

Honey and lavender

Most days they’re burnt

And the scent of smoke

Hugs them like a worn coat

- R. H.

If you think for one second that
I will let you back in,
just remember that everybody you meet
is not meant to stay.
And I thank God for that
because I will no longer take your
words that leave scars in my skin.
I refuse to be the villain of your story
that you are so convinced I am.
I have watched you burn down and you
can clear the wreckage on your own.
My structure will not falter
in your wake.

- R. H.

There have been theories
about the end of the world.
A giant fireball from the sky,
natural disasters,
a mutant virus.
But the truth is far worse
for I have seen it.
It's going to happen when
you awake one morning,
the warm, comforting body
that is usually next to you,
gone.
In their place, a note.
"I don't love you anymore.
I'm sorry"
It'll happen when
she takes her last breath,
the hand you've been desperately
clutching to
loosening in your grip.
When his mother calls you
at 3 a.m., crying,
and tells you that she found her baby,
your best friend,
lying on the red bathroom floor.
It'll take you a minute because
you know that that floor
is white.
This is how the world ends,
neither with a bang or a whisper.

My heart'll be the warmest bed you'll ever lie in

I have met people who have merely been band-aids
to every part of me that was broken.
Then I met you
and your words were like a needle and thread.
While I may not heal perfectly, I was healing.
You haven't spoken to me in days and
those stitches have been ripped out before
my wounds were completely bearable.
You know I only wanted you to be happy.
I thought you wanted the same for me.

I'm sorry that everything I've got left to offer
is either burnt or broken. But something inside me
has rotted away and the taste is now boiling up
and out of my mouth. Dripping off my tongue is
nothing but sadness and anger. I know the flowers
that were once woven into my teeth have withered
and died. An ugly thing has me wrapped tightly
in its arms and when I look at my reflection, I can
no longer tell the difference between the two of us.
Please forgive the fact that I can only curse coherently now;
it seems to be the only thing I can stomach.

You find that breathing
becomes impossible,
so you open your skin.
You distract yourself
from the ache that you
can't quite pinpoint, but
feel everywhere.
I know, I've been there too.
What I wouldn't give
to be able to take your hands
in mine, soothe the pain
we've both felt.
To wrap you in light when
all you beg for is dark.
This love I now carry
was saved for someone
like you, and how I'd
love to be the one to
save you.

How ironic
that as I constantly reminded you
not to pour all of yourself
into someone who barely gave you
a piece of who they are,
I poured all of myself into you.
Now with nothing in return
I am so ******* empty
and with no one to blame but myself.
Can't you see what I've done?

I cannot recall how many days since we've met
But this is the first thing I've ever written about you.
So if you ever come to read it,
You'll know that I think about you every day
And I still can't seem to get out
Exactly how I feel about you
Because my vocabulary does not contain
That many positive words

- R. H.

The first time I said the words
"I love you",
was not the first time I told you I loved you.
The very first time
was when you had come home from work.
I didn't hear from you
for a couple of hours.
Not entirely unusual, but you know me,
I'm a worrier.
You finally texted me and after a brief exchange of words,
you asked me to call you.
Of course I did without hesitation; calling you had become
my favorite part of every day.
You told me you had been crying.
Really crying.
I remember the feeling in my stomach,
the immediate urge to run to where
you were,
to wage a war against whatever it was
that had caused you that much pain.
To hold you.
Verbally, I've never been good with words.
I wanted to say so much.
I could have said it then.
After a drawn out pause, I told you
"I want to take care of you".
Maybe you knew,
maybe you didn't.
I think my heart knew before I did
that I loved you.
But I meant it then, more than anything.
Still do.

Too often to count, I have stood
at the edge. Whether it be of
a bottle,
a blade,
a bridge.
And I always used
to think that if I were a bird, I could
simply fly, should I jump. But now I realize
that my wings have been clipped and I am
locked in a cage behind bars that a prison
would be proud of. Still, with false hope
I jump, and I am falling.

Like the tides need the moon,
I need you so naturally.
A flower cannot bloom without sunlight
and water,
and you broke through the clouds
above my head,
became a waterfall.
You are the warmth of late spring
when you hold me.
A cool rain on a hot summer day
when you kiss me.
The first breath of the air of a crisp fall morning
when I look at you.
You are my perfect day
every day.
My very own piece of natures' raw beauty,
and God, how beautiful you are.

Ugly is
safe.
Ugly is
not getting whistled at
on the street.
Ugly is
being ignored by
the wandering hands
of the drunk man
next to me on
his bar stool.
Ugly is
"yeah, she's a really great friend,
but not really girlfriend material".
Ugly is
5 a.m. tears and
7 a.m. bloodshot eyes.
Ugly is
quiet and
small.
Never speaking up.
Desperate for
the worst kind of attention.
Ugly is
loving you
and hating
myself.