i am sitting and pressing green paint in misshapen swollen dots on my nail beds and thinking what if i mess this up? i am notoriously bad at fingernail painting and i ruin it and i am also afraid i will ruin myself by loving you.

yes, yes i hear you like a train. my head is all railroads and oceans, but i hear you puffing and whistling he does not love you, he would not love you, he loves her. long hair hazel eye i am not her i cannot be that girl i do not want to be his girl

but i want him to want me
oceans
trains

is
      speaking in french, wrapping our tongues around foreign
                                                         ­                                flavors and vowels,
          intertwining with each other,
                                                                ­ whispering
                                                      ­                                  mon amour,
                                                                ­                                my
        love love love love love love
    
what  
                           her hair and his eyes, gold liquidated, pooling
              in glass orbs and strings,

      shards and pools colliding and cascading

love
                          is this truth?
                she takes his hand and mind
       all at the same time and they both cry



what
is
love?

i am
afraid.



other people with their loves
               losses
              and lives
                                            and i sit here,
                                      filled and falling in fear
                                      grasping strips of veins
                     and drinking from rain
                                                            ­            pretending i
                                                                ­    don't
                                                                ­care.

your voice sinks into my skin
you touch my hand in passing
your name steadies my fingers
but you leave me shaking inside
please never look at my eyes
(kiss me)  .
                    .
                       .  (look me in the eye) .

do you ever feel like you're falling out of your frame

loving burns,
but we can't get off it
lighting cigarettes and hearts
with the same matches
kissing, gasping
between the flames,
choking on smoke, ash
and asking each other's names
pretending they're not the next
candle, saying they're not the same;
everybody wants to feel loved,
everyone wants to feel sane
so between the kissing, the asking, and
lighting the same dead flames
we paint wildfires and suns
and pretend we're not mortal
we're not insane.

i hope my words scrape your throat when you say them to yourself. i hope you read this aloud just to see, reading and feeling them stick in your teeth, reading and wondering whether the pit in your stomach will ever cease, if you will ever kiss someone with ease, wondering if trembling fingers means death or just a life of unease, sitting and trembling and feeling darkness like a weight rolling around in your knees, reading words that scrape and stick in the pits of your favorite tees, rolling around with the grease and the laziness you need to never wash the pits of your favorite tees.