You cannot swim,
So do not drown in me.
You cannot dance,
So do not break your legs trying.
You cannot fly,
So do not starve yourself, kneeling at your bed,
praying your ribs turn to wings.

Up,
   Once.
Down, down,
             Twice.

Art is the only good we will ever do,

Pas,
     Pas,
            [end]
Curtains. Bow. Open your eyes.

I do not have the words
to tell you how beautiful you are.
             Ô, ballerine, comme je te méprise.

My art rots inside me.

My kindness is simply my atonement for my shame.

My goodness only exists to hide my selfishness.

You aren’t your thoughts, I know,

But why do I feel them inside of me?

Why are they crawling,

Dragging through my veins and leaving jagged marks?

Why are they nestling into the cracks of my bones?

I am not good,

But my love is real.

It may not be pure,

It may not be beautiful,

But if you’d let me,

I would rip my own heart from its strings to let you see it.

They would stretch until they were snapped stiff,

ringing out like the threads of a harp.

I’d bare myself to you in all that I am, and all that I am not.

And if knowledge is power,

If ignorance is bliss,

I’ll sink my fingers into my skull,

I’ll dig out my brain and fall to the floor,

I’ll offer it to you, and watch with lulled eyes as you hold it gently to your lips.

Yet I am terrified.

I am terrified that a little girl is watching me,

Silent,

Bearing witness to the monster in her skin.

There is blood at your feet,
glass in your flesh,
and sand in your nails.

In an other time,
with another chance.
You don't truly believe things would be different if you could go back.

You are not someone that 'could have been better,'
you are just you, as you are.

You could never have been different.

The coffee's always going cold too fast,
the jeans around my waist are never loose enough.

I'm looking for warmth in blue eyes,
why are they the colour of ice?

Can you hear the buzzing?
Is it crickets in the summer?

Are we beautiful yet?
Are we loved?

Sometimes I step into the wrong hallway,
and a smell hits me.
Its far away, barley there,
and suddenly I can feel my mother's hands in my hair.
I can see the rays of summer's sun filtering beneath my cousin's eyes and colouring them hazel.
I stare in awe, and she paints my nails, as I lie with my cheek against the wooden floor.
I am watching my father, taller than he ever was, and the tea I've spilled is turning cold against the table.

everywhere is a hole,
waiting to **** me up.
every word from your lips,
a beautiful request to crush my heart.
step carefully,
with practiced skepticism,
or the ground will give out beneath you.

It is ridiculous,
To be here in this world,
In this body.
It is stupid to love by my blood than by my heart,
And who allowed the maniacs to have minds?
Who attached thinking and knowing to peril?
Why have history’s artists scoured for an answer,
Tirelessly,
Fully and utterly,
When the only answer they found was the ending.
The closing of the last chapter, the last word on the page.
When all you can do is stare at the ink and wonder,
Where is the rest?
This must be all there is.

Words die when we stop speaking them.
So, please, never stop uttering my name,
Even when the earth has claimed me;
I want to live forever.

I held your eyes,
When I knew you wanted to die.
I held my tongue,
When you asked, “are you done?”

I held myself,
While everyone rushed to hold you.
You spoke like you knew all the right ways to hurt me,
But you sat there and cried,
In the silence after screams,
While I stared at the open sky.

I still have your letter,
Telling me that you trust me,
That I was beautiful,
Sitting in a box beneath my bed.
And now you can’t pick up the phone,
Or answer my texts.
I sleep above the burdens of my love,
Every night,
it tugs, incessantly, silently,
And there is nothing I can do.

I can still feel the door on my back,
My knees against my chest.
You, standing stoically on the other side,
Oh, how I try to imagine what your face held,
As I bared my heart to you in the darkness,
Every vein so carefully shielded by bone.
“Are you done?”
Am I done? Am I well and truly done?
The words ring in my head,
Even now, as I watch the moon rise and fall.
I don’t remember what I said that day,
But I remember footsteps receding down the stairs,
A door slammed shut,
Taking with it all of my air.
I remember the cold floor on my cheek,
My chipped nails digging into flesh,
To keep my own heart inside of me,
To keep it beating, breathing.

And still, you thought you could touch the knife,
Twist it, even.
But I am not a stagnant creature,
I will not be bit once, and reach into your jaws a second time.
And you, more than anyone taught me —
What is love but conditional?