I met a woman
brutal in her mercy.

Her embrace was a clinch
to prevent hard blows.
She pulled me close to push me away.
Seeing my nakedness
she leant me a dream
of chainmail and shield.
Taking love from me she gave a reprieve
to a mind resigned to the slow death of feeling.

Ignoring my words she heard
my faint silent heartbeat and
understood that it was music
too quiet for the world to hear
and turned it up louder
than I could stand.
I wept in my deafness
as she danced.

betrayal is the beginnings of pure agony and heartbreak. betrayal is the feeling of loneliness inside your stomach, clawing and ripping, letting the acid into your blood stream. it burns. and aches. betrayal is the sensation felt when a dagger is placed ever so delicately against your  back and then proceeds to be rammed into your spine, paralyzing you with misery. these daggers shoot at your closed wounds, reopening them, re-exposing them to the cruelty of the world. betrayal is the feeling of a hand wrapped tightly around your trachea, restricting your breathing and forcing you to just sit back and take it, and let it happen, because there's nothing you can do about it except take the excruciating pain and close your eyes. time cannot heal betrayal. time cannot replace the damaged inflicted by betrayal. regardless of forgiving, betrayal is permanent.

I'm running away
Cause my only reason for
Living is my pen

It's education
Perpetual writer's block
Feels too good in here

I don't want to move
No more blues for me to sing
Smiles in emptiness

Spaces between words
Where I carefully reside
Not real, feeling good.

you moved with the soft rise and fall of morning tides in the ocean
and, hastily, i followed, even though i couldn't swim
you walked along soft, high grasses shining in the warmth given by light
and, carefully, i followed, even though the sun burned my skin
you spoke words of sugar and might, letting your soul spill in soft twilight
and, slowly, i followed, even though the taste of sugar ran me dry
you were a night sky, glistening with stars and constellations
and, like always, i was a **** enveloped in your carnations

they left the door ajar, lightless, and the heavy darkness swallowed us whole
yet i could still see you with my hands cupped around your face
the cold wooden floor chilled my spine but the fire in my chest burned me up
you were all that is new, the autumn i never had
a feeling like a fever dream that's at the same time the clearest there was
impossible to name and even more to ignore

my roots are growing in ashy
i can't stop looking at my acne scars

i taste everything good in me
and lick the sin off my fingers

but no one told me that loving myself
would be this exhausting

.                                                 sea and sand,                                          .
                ­                          salt and surf, foam and
                                       froth, greet and gather, tumble
                                    and turn, rock and roll, spray and
                                 spin, cross and current,                roar        
                               and rise, crash and curdle,                mix
                            and mash, blend and bash, drip
                         and drop, pour and plunder, leap and
                     layer, mound and mist, shine and sheen, scoop
                  and scale, spread and span, fall and falter, leap and
               layer, splash and spire, bubble and brine, writhe and write
         s             e            a           w           o           r            t           h           y

a wave of air
a stream of fire
a world ablaze
a person enranged
a life encaged
and eyes
and a smile
and everything
and you.