tear off my skin
with the acrid sting of your worries and concerns

things are safe, so rational in the afternoons, in the
tuesday mornings and in the lunches and essays due at noon

it's when the sun drips away behind the clouds
and the air becomes so thick between these walls
i'm choking on your schedule

i want the black padded backing of
the chair as you smile and tell me how
you miss reading the back of cereal
boxes

i want the tremor of your voice
as you harmonize with the radio
and i follow along
off-key

i've only ever wanted to be taken care of
i've only ever wanted to be alone

the night envelopes
me in its heaviness

the air,
so tricky in its whispers,
tells me i can breathe.

i don't believe it.

the pulsing between my
legs won't quit

wound up, starved
ragged

the ticking of
self-depreciation

keeps my body

things
have changed now

years later and i have these
violent, tender things
strangling and
blooming simultaneously

my pale, thick
legs and bruised arms
and the hollows under
my eyes are fighting
a vicious war against
the desperate, wide-eyed
pleadings of my head.

these desperate, cheering lavender flowers.

petals sprout from your fingertips
and they move across my body
in waves of longing and desire
bright blooming in the cold hollows
between my bones
where light has never shone

the way sparks fly from your
eyes sets me aflame from the
sweat of my hair, to the
crooked edges of my fingernails to the
soft sinew of my calves

you’ve created a world anew
in between the
whispers of my fears and insecurities

it's tuesday and
the fog rolling along the damp
sidewalk is nipping at my heels
as they click

the air smells like the hush of
christmas trees, the nostalgic
wish of hopefulness

my mind is bouncing back
between the minuscule and
the extraordinary, the deadlines
and the christmas cookies

today is tuesday.

i feel like my form is hollow.

no organs pulsingandthrumming, my veins drained.

empty.

the emptiness left behind after you weaved
your fingers between my ribs and slipped
your hands around my heart, only to leave
a gaping hole when you were wrenched away
from me.

every day I wake
and look at myself with utter
disgust
every inch of my skin,
every pore and strand of hair is
dripping with the grease and slime you left behind,
coating
my ears
and my eyes
and my mouth
and my heart
altering my perception of reality.

you.
you built me up with
your sweet, slick words
and melting eyes
and rough fingers at my waist

the taste of bitter coffee and cigarettes ringing in my ears

your presence, so near and secret, created a world
outside the struggle and need for validation I fought through

a world built up on glass spires
of innocence
and desire
and longing
and secrecy
and need.

my fingers are ringed with green,
the sea foam tone of the rough ocean on a cloudy day

i miss the sea.
i long for its cool, salty sting

i enjoy it whether blindingly
bright, choruses of laughter and seagull
cries piercing the air, or chilled
and fog-laden, the stubborn water lamenting
its woes against the unforgiving shore

every morning,
everysinglerise of the persistent sun
since the days when your hands clawed at my budding skin
has brought this undeniable chill to my bones

every morning i've awoken
and found my hands disgusted with the way my body moves beneath me

the soft curve of my cheeks towards my neck is revolting
if I press my fingers to the hollows beneath my *******, i feel bones:
soft lavender flowers wrapped around my rib cage and blooming around my heart.

these flowers never bloomed like this, not even under your soft embrace.

with you, i found deep scarlet, choked petals curling
around my windpipe and setting my throat
afire with the passion burning in your eyes

roots a brilliant black weaved their way through my intestines and rooted themselves in the pit of my stomach where my mind but not my body knew that this was a desperate mistake.

let me wrap myself up inside the warm cavern of your body

ease my fingers through the spaces between your ribs and hold your heart in my hands.

i want to take all the cracks in your life and all the ways you ever felt you've been cheated and all the emptiness left by crowded rooms full of people and the stinging words of those who should love you and the dark quiet of your mind
and fill them with love and devotion.

let our potential flow over you and bloom like wildflowers.

these repetitions
the sound of my voice reverberating back
sometimes it feels like I haven’t spoken at all
because the static that kisses my words feels unreal

i crave the way you move as my fingers write novels across your ribs
the quiet hush of skin against skin
whispering
safetysafetysafety
whispering
home

where along the path
did i lose my faith?

what dropped me down from the
white,eternally hopeful
land of romantics?

i'd like to say it was you, but i don't know if you

if you
if the way you held me against you
if the way your eyes followed my form
if you

deserve that much credit.

we tend to romanticize the dead.
i think we do that to our lost loves, too.