Acid in my lungs,

I can feel the chemical reaction

burning up my atoms:

bubbling
                         boiling
                                                bursting

in my chest.

I'm coming apart

in your hands.

How do we survive this life?
*We don't, we all expire.

Hear my love confession
whispered under the blackness of night.
It trembles from my lips
like your sweet kisses;
traded like secrets
passed with fumbling hands
and twisted limbs
tied around your waist like a knot,
too tight to unravel
with these silent words.

I love you sometimes,
when we're kids again.

Lying, exposed,
I've made myself
A sacrificial lamb
On the altar of
The unmade bed.
Time and again
I offer myself
To a merciless, wrathful
God, a wolf, a serpent
A blasphemous act
Against my unclaimed heart.
These are no Gods
Towering over me,
Only vultures picking me
To scraps.

For the first time,
I scream these words,
In a whisper,
Please,
Just help me,
I don't want to drown anymore

You're still on my skin;
I can feel your imprint
on my flesh like a bruise.
I only hope your scent
doesn't leave a stain.

I can feel that damp, course grass beneath my feet.
I'm nauseous again, in that place again.
I can feel their eyes on my veins,
I can feel him, breathing on my neck,
I can hear him laughing.

It's dizzying, sickening,
like blaring white noise
screeching from a broken radio.

It's an itch that crawls down my arms,
a hand around my throat that tells me to stop breathing;
to stop fighting.

I want to give in.
I want to bleed again.
To feel the metal scrape through all my layers
and cut me open.

I want to cut it all away.

I feel your teeth sink in
and your venom send shivers
racing over my skin.

You slip around my neck
and your hands
are a boa's constricting caress.

I'm on fire beneath you;
writhing, as you exhale fumes
straight into my burning lungs.

My blood runs cold
on the floor.

Nothing else can consume me
so completely, so terribly,
as our excruciating, infinite love.

There's no fire to be started
with paper matches,
but the real thing
sets the whole house alight.
It all goes up in smoke;
burning up your books
and shattering your windows,
so that your safe space
is no more.

It's stupid,
How we come to trust,
Someone,
Because they listen,
And then, as if you never expected it,
They turn around,
With the same old smile,
In their eyes,
And slap you in the face,
And all you can do,
Is feel the bitterness,
Burning so deep,
Scaring your blood-stained skin,
And you can't help but wonder,
*Why?

You're my dream,
my immutable love.

Tear my clothes off,
tear my heart out.

I feel your bones through
your skin and I wonder
if you love me.

In the back of my mind,
I know I will fall asleep,
Crying and alone tonight,
Like every other,

In my aching bones,
I feel the ground quiver,
As you slam the door,
On your way out,
Never to return,

I can't deny this truth,
No matter how hard I try,
To block out your voice,
Yelling, "Don't ever expect to see me again!",
To imagine you didn't leave,
That you'll be home soon,

I still feel you,
Fighting my hands,
Fighting my desperate grasp,
In turn, ripping yours,
From my shaking figure,
Throwing me to the floor,

I know how these events played out,
I play them back,
Again, again,
It hurts,
I do it anyway,
To bring you back,
The only way I know

I want to be the kind of
******* your mind
when you sing in the shower
and your voice goes soft
thinking about my skin.

When you close your eyes,
your mind hazy with desire;
I want to be the one
on the tip of your tongue.

Love me in the
back seat of your car

It's a feeling that I can never
put my finger on,
to seize its power with a name.
It's that slight rhythmic delay
in conversations on the phone,
the footfall of our voices
constantly just out of step.
Moments that are almost inconsequential,
but I keep picking at them
in my mind
like the loose skin of a hangnail.
Thumbing at the thoughts
in a way you tell yourself is harmless.
Just a bit more...
Only in an instant, it's all irrevocably undone.
It's that bitter stone of doubt in your chest
when there's a full stop instead of an "x".
You can't help circling back
to that seed planted in your mind
earlier than you can ever remember,
that it's you - fundamentally,
objectively, intrinsically.
Against your own better judgement,
it's so easy to sink into the ruminations
of inadequacy and psychological self-flagellation.
How many more times must you feel this way?
It's so familiar that you can almost detach.
That every time you feel that sparkle of
human connection, of being wanted for a moment,
it's already waiting for you.
You already know it's inevitable.