I salt all my wounds,
Excoriate the flesh,
I like the way it stings,
And makes the pain feel fresh

Heartbreak sets you on fire,
So you emerge hardened steel

Sometimes we hand love as willingly,
As hostages with Stockholm syndrome,
As if it was just a foregone conclusion.

“Here, take my heart,” you’ll say.
“Look how delicately it beats.”
You hope they cradle it, treat it with care.

“Please be careful,” you’ll say.
“It’s yours now. And ******* it, I need to trust you.”
Love can be irresponsible.

“Please don’t make me regret this.”

I wonder what you saw in my eyes
that always made you smile
and look away

I have dreams where I'm searching rooms for echoes of your voice,
Faint reverberations of my own imaginings.

You once wrote me,
"This might be a really bad idea or a brilliant one."
Isn't it funny how it turned out to be both?

(n.)*: the kind of truth that makes your voice crack, no matter how many times you say it aloud

Choking in this atmosphere
Help me please, I'm dying here!
I need a breath, resuscitation
A change of pace, a new location

Plotting a breakup,
Plotting a ******,
Both leave a body,
Marked for the coroner.

I'm sorry.

They say ghosts feel cold,
But your hand on my cheek,
Pale, ethereal, yet warm
Says otherwise,
They say ghosts feel cold,
But my memories could warm me forever,
So throw another log on the fire, love,
It's gonna be a cold winter

Reckless
Impulsive
Awful
Irresponsible
Frantic
Love

I was always starved for your kiss,

Once you playfully held back,
A harmless betrayal

I remember doing the same thing to a girl after you,
The balance of power obvious

Woe betide whoever craves their lover's kiss more

“I guess I’ll just have to forget about you,”
(You idiot…)
“That shouldn’t be hard,” you said, looking away
You patient angel, what did you endure?

Forgetting’s going well, just swell,
As I’m sure you can tell,
And my soul I would sell
To escape from this hell
Of living every day without you

I bit off more than I could chew,
When I said I wanted you

You were a mess of scars,
****** by awful men
And I was a boy,
Trying to lick your wounds

"I wanted to fix you," I said
Foolish boy,
You can't fix people

I should have called it quits
But your kiss left me breathless
And I was at wit's end

You ****** me too,
And when you were through,
I was no longer a boy,
But a shattered man

Now I've got a scar or two,
But what does it prove?
That I've learned my lesson?
Or that I'm ready to **** up again?

I still tear these words out of my throat occasionally
And I talk to you but I know you're not listening
All you do is silently scream from behind every song
And oh how I play you on repeat, just to get a taste
Hungering like the ****** that I am
You're my most romantic drinking problem
You're poison and I can't get enough
My body quivers, my hands shake
But you'll never be my fix
You can't fix this mess I've wrought
With unchained heart and foolish tongue
And I'd rather see an end to this heartache
But where's the fun in finality?

Kissing you tastes like nothing,
But aborted dreams and
Could have beens

Drowning and on fire,
A hopeless love,
Torrid and dire

As I pour another glass to libate
Memories appear and sublimate

Check out my picture perfect life on Facebook,
Smiling faces, likes and comments,
I hope you don't find out,
My life is anything but

She'll teach you the meaning of silence

(n.): that nagging worry in the back of your mind that maybe you're not as happy as you could be, as you *should be, maybe this isn't enough

Lips the taste of disastrous perfection
A kiss that could only portend my undoing

You were the tornado
I never wanted to disappear,
You left my heart
Without a home,
Dazed and stumbling
From one dead end to the next,
And I still wander,
Late at night,
Looking for a light,
To guide me *home

You are a delicate car crash,
A gentle forest fire,
An elegant apocalypse.

Whisper me sweet lullabies
Hold me tight and promise me
That I'll never have to live without you

I will love you,
But be warned,
It will stain

You let me hold you one last night,
One last night to sleep away this misery

You softly asked,
"Mike? Do you think I'm pretty?"

I gently kissed your back,
"I think you're gorgeous"

I shovel my feelings into the furnace,
To keep warm,
In the winter of your absence

A kiss so potent,
To speak of it is verboten

I wish you didn't occupy every idle thought,
I wish you weren't the meaning of absence
And I wish you didn't sound like silence

I wish you knew,
It wouldn't make a difference if you did,
But I wish it would

In my head,
Your grave plot is beautiful,
And I visit it every. single. day.

No matter what happens,
*******,
be kind to each other

I don't want to fix you,
Don't want to change you,
Control you,
I want you as broken as I am,
I want you *just the way you are