he warmed her edges until she
caught flame,
so she might burn bright like
him.
he splintered her spine and
peeled words back from pages,
flung them to the wind.
now the pavement is wet with
the shreds of her,
flushing away the last vestiges
of who she was.
she was once a book
with his name written in red
in every chapter.
each of the stories shared,
cautionary tales
thrown on the ground and
trampled under careless foot —
but all at once,
in a furious storm, he
tore himself away,
and even she cannot make sense
of what is left behind.

you should see the way the
sunflowers swivel to stare at you;
your shadow outshines the sun.
you walk through beehives and
emerge dripping in honey.
haven't you noticed the
sparrow on your windowsill; she
sings her sweet song
solely for your sake!
and the wildflowers that
blossom in your footprints
and the wavelets that ripple
from your words —
don't you hear your name beneath the
rustling of the leaves and the
crackling of the fire and the
whistling of the wind?
if nature marvels at the
magnificent masterpiece you are, then
so should you

i wanted you
to reach beneath my ribs
and touch my heart
but your fist fractured my feeble bones
your jagged fingernails scraped
the insides of my lungs
my nerves screamed but i
could not find the breath to protest
as your hands ripped vein after vein
my cracked lips shaped forgotten words
but you weren't looking at me
you were admiring your scarlet skin
when you caught my lip between
your teeth i
could ******* own blood
you promised me this was
how it was supposed to feel
but when you pulled back you
left my heart hanging
in my ribboned chest
it was months until i
learned to believe that
i would ever find
breath there again

i weave you into the words i write
in the hopes
that there,
you'll stay
out of mind
but there's no hope of getting you out of my heart

you were the first brushstrokes
in the backdrop of my painting
the tangling colors,
colliding like comets
against an inky black sky
every day, with your knife you
peeled away the paint
leaving shadows
in the shape of you
i did not notice
until you were too far gone
the blackness
where your vividness had once been
i felt it
at the core of my being
you can pretend
you were never here
you can pretend
love and hate are miles apart
but i still hold the scraps of that painting
the canvas with
your footprints and
your tire marks and
the smears from your fingers
and i still feel you
at the tips of my fingers

if you could learn to love
and if i could wake without the ghosts
of your fingers on my skin, then i guess
we could be alright someday.

we tasted poison on every pair of lips
we’ve ever touched but it never
stopped us from kissing each stranger
that bothered to learn our names.

i met a man with a voice sweeter than candy
and i melted on his fingertips.
you pull apart every woman who tried
to hold you at night; we’ve never felt safe
sleeping naked with the lights on.

there was supposed to be something
to sew our bodies back together,
because i’ve never felt whole with
anyone else’s hands on me except yours.

you wear me inside out like a piece of art,
and the only act that i will ever call holy is
the kind i dream about,
where you remember
exactly how to make me implode.