They'll sew your lips shut in pretty little stitches
To keep your screams quiet,
Because beauty is nothing less than immeasurable pain.
I hear you'll be grateful though;
Your face will be lovely
And because of your tightly bound lips,
No one can smell the way your insides will rot.

bruised breathing
it's a funny feeling
like the universe inside my chest has tilted off it's axis
is spinning through the milky way of my veins
destroying everything it was never meant to collide with
won't admit that you're the catalyst
but you loosened the screws
of my locked tight jaw and when the hinges swung free
you stepped back and whispered "be free"
as if you were the chains shakling me to the concrete
stained red with my lack of hope
but you never understood
you still never do
it wasn't your fingers around my neck you were unlocking
with that skill you have for repairing rusty things
it was the noose i'd shafted around my throat
out of steel chains
each link a notch in my spine that knocked me to the floor
when the blow was delivered
i settled into the grooves of your existence too nicely
forgot that they were trenches
that this is a war
now i've covered my ears from the sounds of explosion
rocking through your gaze
sleep with my finger on the trigger just in case
there's a reason to pull you back from the edge
i never do anything with a helmet and i guess i'm learning that
not all head wounds are going to leave you black and blue
i can't decide if the pounding in my skull is
a desperate attempt for my body
to keep feeling something or if it's my mind
telling me it'll all be over soon
i called us a storm once and i guess i forgot that every
hurricane has exactly one quiet zone
and that it doesn't sit still for anyone
i'm no longer in your gaze
i'm just the aftermath
of a bomb that was never meant to go off
blowing too soon
like an unlit fuse sparked at the base
like fireworks behind my eyes from lack of oxygen
when i hold my breath to keep from
screaming for you, baby,
i take burn victim to a whole new level
every inch of my flesh is seared with the memory of you
and how you held me together
you were my glue
and i pretended i was a brick wall
cemented in my solidity and incapable of crumbling
because i didn't think you'd feel very safe
inside walls so easily knocked down
it's my fault the city's been evacuated
i knew the limits of the towering glass structures
built them up with my own trembling hands
and so when you sit there
cheek bleeding from a stray shard of my
self destruction
remember that i was too selfish
to save you

Razor-sharp fingernails scrape layers of flesh from eyelids
Splaying them eternally open
Can't unsee what's been seen
Can't unhear the sounds
Or unsmell the odor that rots in nostrils, infecting every rose
There's no stopping when they all stink the same
Can't undo, can't undo
Safety in bile where nightmares are birthed in reality,
In places that fester like the remnants of the lids that blinded
Bleach doesn't clean untruths
Fire doesn't  burn hot enough to mask pain
Blisters seem like hope
Hope to heal
Hope to resemble something familiar
Peeling skin back with teeth
Wishing for them to bleed
When scalding tubfulls try to cleanse
the grime that sludges through a broken mind
Attached to a heart mindlessly lashed in the shame of

Love