church in my backyard
every ******* sunday those bells woke me up
consume the minds of over half the worlds population
***** their knees for you
become vulnerable
easier target to kick in the stomach
i'll leave you bleeding in the confession booth
and your last words will still be "help me God"

In seventh grade I watched my friend bleed out
Holding what was left of his leg, he whispered, "This isn't good."
They say that the human body contains eight pints of blood
I counted nine.

When you were born, no one knew.
No one knew how intense the galaxy inside of you was.
How each star would illuminate your eyes,
and how you would illuminate mine.

In tenth grade,
my dad didn't talk to me for three months.
I didn't know who I was for three months.
My light became darkness as his love became emptiness.
Father, love me the way I love you. I pretend not to,
please be the same way as me.

Your heart grew faster than my hands, brother.
I hope someone loves you more than I.
For I am what you are, everything without and within,
forever and without the night.

Mother,
do you feel what I feel? Do you see what I see?
Am I what you imagined, more or less?
Do my words matter? Does my heartbeat pound alone?
Do you love me?

You are what illuminates my eyes, Queen Anne's Lace.
With or without, from your eyes to mine,
silence with noise, electricity moves throughout
yet I am calm. You are what I know,
and all that should be known is that
you deserve to be happy.

In twelfth grade my father tried to stab me.
If he was successful, it wouldn't have been the first time
one of his actions got past the surface level.

It's not your fault, burning rainbow on the water.
Adaptation without reclamation I find you in my translation
as hurt yet elation. Mother.

My kaleidoscope,
so soon,
mirroring colors and shape.
Am I looking at myself?

I don't care if you don't comprehend, the words I say or how I end.
And if you don't understand the words that pass,
your eyes, like your heart, are transparent glass.
Taste throughout, with blood mixed in, the way I beat has always been
to know, to show, to allow what I see now to be seen,
may I know what I let go is what I'll always mean.
Thunderbolts from your mouth, good luck to me because I am shocked.
There is no lock. There is no lock. There is no lock.

I live throughout different years, with evolving eyes without resolving fears.
I've been afraid. I've been lost.
Kaleidoscope.
No longer, no more.  
My heart is an open door.

Blood stained pants.
Hands without.
With every word,
every shout.

You love me with closed eyes in a lit room; you love me with open eyes in a dark room
2. Your veins are the stems of plants, I have yet to see the green phenomena that blossoms from it
3.You touch me like I am lighter fluid and you are a lit match
4. Like flowers that stab the ground,you make life beautiful in the most painful way
5.i love you so much and I think my ceiling is growing weary of me saying it in my sleep
6.I miss you like a Chernobyl swing set misses children

Maybe I focus too much on what your skin feels like against mine and maybe
the stem of a rose does too
my thorns have never been overlooked.
I imagine your hugs that constrict me will
Not only take my breath away but eventually my life
me feeling like a city at night
that wears streetlights like it's
Most expensive jacket,
I'm only trying to impress you with.
I may spend too much time thinking about what your lips look like
but I bet you have your mother's eyes,
And your fathers hands
And even when it is tainted red from all the holes you've ****** into your wall
It always matched with the pink in the sky right before a storm
I've always admired nature taking itself back
And you letting it

Build me with frostbite covering my heart, build me with a snowflake constantly falling from the roof of my mouth, build him with a yearning for cold weather. Let every person I miss for the next 20 years forget to return the favor.
I want to stick a panic room underneath the chalices in my palms so they aren't so timid once I hear you talk about wearing Sunday clothes when you had your first beer.
build me with gunslinger fingertips that touch and touch and touch and stay steady, build my footsteps with the sounds of a rainstorm knocking on the ground of an empty parking lot, build him out of prayers for a flood.
If I didn't bruise so easily, if I wasn't looking for a way to be made of a river, if I needed the silence to mean something, then I would ask you build me out of quiet kisses and vengeful goodbyes, I would need you to build me out of reasons to believe instead of reasons to be afraid, I would turn my kneecaps into strawberries in exchange for potter's hands so I could mold you a bulletproof spirit. I want to spend the rest of my life watching the clouds, I want to have a voice as steady an oak tree and I want to see the sun cry rays of light so hard that it beats the sky purple

Guilty is synonymous with self-condemnation
And confessions only come out at night
I'm sorry for gracing you with my tyrannical presence
It's not that I want to clip your wings but my arms are made of scissors and you are always reaching for a hug
I can't control what I speak or what I feel
I can love you
I can love you the wrong way
I can leave words your skin with my mouth
I can blister you without making you sit in the sun
I can replace the joints between your bones with styrofoam
I'm sorry for building you with weak material
Guilty is synonymous with self-condemnation
Maybe confessions only come out at night
In Alaska, there is sunlight during the evening for 6 months
Maybe this shows the truth can be exposed with sun filtered through blinds instead of stars
Maybe it takes two different types of light to expose to different types of truths
Maybe I've changed my mind
Maybe I can't make up my mind
Maybe I'm not good for you
I'm not good for myself
I'm not sure of anything
I'm sure of one thing
I love you
But not the right way

You say you are afraid of cold weather but Winter has been growing behind your eyelids, and this is another part of you that you can be ashamed of but I can love
You say you are afraid of small corners and tight spaces but your blood stained mattress says you have been crafting yourself into something that can
compress into my morning thoughts
And if I could, I would squeeze your smile into my glass before I started my day

You are afraid of walking into a pharmacy knowing that every painkiller and sleeping medication has your initials carved into it
And two palms pressed together are placed on the warning label
How many years have you been trying to find god in the bottom of them

When is the last time you asked yourself what you're made of or what I'm made of or what both of us combined creates
When is the last time you loved someone with your hands like dry dirt and a chest filled with weeds only a girl with a soft smile can replace with blooming flowers
When is the last time you filled your lungs with cheap wine promises that were never strong enough to keep you from falling down the steps but wise enough to tell you he's not going to take your keys or hold your hair back
When is the last time you didn't regret having the strength to swim upstream knowing the only thing waiting for you was another excuse to be wet and out of breath, you shouldn't have to wear an oxygen tank in order to love someone the right way
You do not see all the rays of light that flee from your spirit, or comprehend how leaving someone and loving someone can be fueled by the same spit of heat
But it will burn and it will be more than you can touch, so you will spend your life with a nightstand filled with band aids and burns on your fingertips and you'll never really know who you are but at least I will