my body is a phantom limb.
sometimes I can feel myself
being the person I wish I was.

my love is a reverse Midas touch.
one day, your eyes will stop lighting up.
your sun will stop trying to break through
the cloud that is my melancholy.
your forgiveness will wither
underneath all of these apologies;
nothing can grow when it is
being watered too much.

one day, you will stop getting your hands *****.
you will stop searching for good intentions
in the ruins of everything I have destroyed.
you will stop searching for me
like I'm the survivor of a shipwreck
and not the shipwreck itself.

one day, you will understand why
abandoned buildings are demolished
when they cannot be saved.

if the eyes are the windows to the soul,
then dress them up nicely.
keep all of the anger
threatening to pour from you
behind a locked mouth.
nobody asks the person living
in a well kept home if she is okay.

wear every apology like a thorn.
let them stare at the resentment
that blossoms from those roots,
and let a garden grow from each puncture.
they'll let you talk about your pain
if you disguise it in flowery metaphors.

love is the wide eyed child
that beckons you to this address.
forgiveness is the 12 year old girl
dusting off his promises to change.
you have outgrown these faces,
but you still put them on
because naivety has more to offer.

releasing a bird into a bigger cage
is not freedom.

every 28 days,
the human skin replenishes itself.
my hands are tired of building new homes
on top of old eviction letters.
I am aching for a body
that treats me like a cure,
and not the disease that needs it.

I live as a counterfeit version of myself;
I am a kleptomaniac who steals the breath
from people that would have found a use for it.
tell me how to refund
what I didn't buy.

my veins are a breeding ground for despondency,
my bones a shelter for malaise.
to try to be kind to myself
is to cauterize a wound
after the infection has already spread.