Warm balmy air
Ruffles your hair
Smell of smoke
fills my lungs

Sudden lean in
Sends me reeling
Taste of drink
upon your tongue

Bad boy image
I, so timid
Your hands gentle
as they explore

Touch so tender
Sweetest surrender
A little further
than I'd gone before

Beautiful and honest
Sincere in our promise
That we would always
be true

Convinced and so sure
Innocent and pure
You'd always love me
And I would love you

I knew a girl who used poetry as a weapon.
Who broke hearts for fun, only to dip her pen in their blood and write lines in the sand.

I knew a girl who used poetry as a shield.
Who thought her words were justified if she dipped them in honey before she spoke.

I knew a girl who used poetry as a blindfold.
Who hid her betrayal behind selfless lines and artful lies.

And she called me her muse and I thought it a compliment when really it was a curse.
Because I knew a girl who only wrote poetry about broken hearts so she let me fall so she could watch me drop and describe the sound of my impact with honey-coated drizzle.

Because it’s my heart that was pen-dipped.
My ears that were darkened by honey-covered lies.
My eyes that were obscured by a blindfold of silk.

And when my blood dried and the sand was used up, she went for another boy.
A broken boy.

One she didn’t have to break to write her twisted lines.

She was like music,
and I longed to dance.

Her heart was the beat,
and I begged for the chance.

Her words were the vocals,
and I was put in a trance.

Her smile was the melody,
and I fell in love at first glance.

sp1nning
fluctuat1ng
all around me

the 1mages never stay the same
as soon as 1 think 1 see 1t
1t changes
a small shift
throwing my percept1on 1nto a d1zzying dance

c1rcular room
m1rrors enfolding me
1n a reflect1ve embrace

1 see myself
warped
1n a million d1fferent places
a superf1c1al 1mage of me

the embrace of the m1rrors
turns strangling
constr1cting snapshots of my face

gasp1ng
chok1ng
for air

but relief does not come

1 am encased in a million different vers1ons of myself