how beautiful must one be
to torment the knight in shining armor?
the object of one's desire, if you please;
whoever you want me to be.
an attempt at sincerity,
pure honesty for the sake of it, with nothing to lose.
a futile attempt at false hope,
a convincing con;
nothing left unsaid
except the things that really mattered.
what's it like on the other side?
take me there with you, my love.
i hope that the heaving hope
fades to black like the silver screens
you are more acquainted with than most.
is it hopeless to want the good with the bad?
nothing can be black or white;
we slink and shudder amongst shades of gray,
sterling silver promises of smoke and sweet nothings.

the itch belies the sure streams within;
there's much more to this, i'm sure.
envy or jealousy,
is there much of a difference anyways?
complete admission for the sake of sincerity
ended up being the noose tied tight.
the understudy becomes the shining star
the hero; Narcissus, even.
made an example of as the jester,
the court clown.
the unlikely hero in the wake of a greek tragedy.
the lens shifts back to the shining subject.
perfect by design.
mirage or not, she bears the marks of a flawless
feast for the eyes.
echoes and steady beats
make so sweet a memory of times passed;
times one can scarcely construe as more than a fever dream
of one's wildest dreams and desires.
is there a truth to be told at all?

when you're crashing waves of chaos and your anchor meets you with solid stillness
it rocks the boat,
there is a violence to nothingness.

there's a fine line between honestly and self-destruction
treading it is not my strong suit.
where does informed consent turn into irreparable damage?

I drag the blade of this razor across my skin, coaxing out melodies like the strings of a bow across the length of a violin.

I’m a composer now; I’m the whole ******* orchestra — conductor and everything.

I direct the siren song

You were a cigarette
Insatiable, I ******
You dry,
The wisps frantically wavering
And then escaping into the air around me and
Like an ephemeral curl of smoke you were gone as soon as you appeared
You got away and all I wanted was to
Breathe you into my lungs and hold you there
The scent lingering on my fingertips when I hold you close to my lips
No one else knew how the whisper of you
Clung to my lips and my breath when
You had gone away for good.
I couldn’t hold you close enough for long
And you slipped between my fingers.
Burning bright and settling upon the earth till the
Embers themselves lost their light
And it was like you were never there in the first place

Stunned silent, with a black hole ******* out the air from my lungs.
Left in a daze, screeching tires and the
rumble of an unsympathetic engine.

It had been a year, but it felt like a universe could have been born
and destroyed in the time you were gone;
A year spent glancing into rooms and tiptoeing around crowds
expecting to see the glimmer of gold,
but being greeted by a hollow reflection,
lost, looking for Home.
Did you know that i've been waiting for you?

Stuck in a tenth circle of hell
where people who love who they shouldn't
bleed sure streams of red to write letters that will never be sent
after the ink bottle has been emptied.

The lonely bench, the empty rooms.
Do you even remember how it felt
when you would look into my eyes and smile that clueless smile?
I sure as hell do.

Burning legs, aching to bring me closer to you.
Taking the long way to pass you by, to have you smile at me,
to have you notice me.
Arms wrapped around torsos to shield from the rain
and the hurt, the underlying ache and the bright, stinging
pain of affection.
Fluttering feelings, like butterflies in the pit of my stomach,
betraying my fondness of everything that was you.
Spilled ink and tears, clichéd attempts to make you care if I was hurting, to try and make you love me.
Nonchalant responses and joking tones
masking the enormity of the love I felt for you,
the love I feel for you.
Experiencing every feeling so intensely that I thought my bones would shatter from the weight of all the emotions swimming in my head
and in my heart.
I didn't think that it was possible for me to feel so deeply,
to be so utterly immersed in the desire to belong to someone
that songs and sonnets couldn't dream of articulating
the dizzy haze of ecstasy that washed over me
every time I was close to you.

A rush of chemicals and the firing of synapses
couldn't be all there was to it.
How do you explain the suffocating weight on my chest,
the piercing pain and consuming agony
that tore me to shreds when I heard the news,
when I heard that you were leaving me behind?

You cared for me, but not in the way that I wanted you to.
I wanted you to want me with the same burning passion,
with all the desperation of a man on fire trying to extinguish the flames that engulfed him.
A lovestruck teenager willing to tear themselves apart,
to fight every atom in their body and destroy themselves from the inside out just to numb themselves,
to make their heart impervious to your attacks.
Each smile you sent my way was a crushing blow that tore down
the walls I had built to protect me from you.
I thought that making myself hate you would stop it,
the searing anguish that could only come from unrequited love.

Now, all that is left is the fading memory of your hazel eyes
and the scars I carved trying to bleed out my love for you.

You feel it hurt.
The tingle in your body before the stinging in your eyes, the ache in your bones and your swelling throat.

I would do anything for you.

Clenched jaws and white knuckles and taut necks.
Raised voices and flinching, fingers interlocked.
I messed up, I know, but I love you more than you can ever know.

They tell me that I should just forget about you,
stop seeing you in fruit juice and staircases and striped shirts.
But you've ruined me, you have.

You blinded me with the light I saw in your eyes,
robbed me of my ability to feel after you burned me with the scorching love you made me feel for you.

You told me it was my fault as I stood
Pressed against the ledge with fingers entwined,
Fingers tearing at the tangled veins that pulsed
With the hurt that rushed under the canvas
You tore through as you made your way out of
Me.

I remember how it felt; just like the
Time you looked through me with those hazel
orbs glazed over, and I felt every
sealed **** inside me being forced open.
What you didn't know was that it was worth it,
You.

You laughed it off and turned your head away,
As if it wouldn't matter if it was
Hidden from view; the breaking of a heart
Under the weight of all the lies. As if
Telling me to smile at
you could fix the hurt.