I dream about magic.
about bending time
and undoing the strings
of mistakes that land
me here every night,
the ocean of regret
and longing.

I dream about the
drifting, the days
I spent pushing you
away and the night
I spent falling into
the wrong arms.

my favorite dream is the
one where we go to bed
together, where
we should have been
all along.

that's the dream. the
longing is the nightmare.

felt it in my bones,
the day I met you.
felt the air around us
vibrate a little bit,
like the universe
whispering in my ear,
welcome home.
swept me off my
feet, swept me out of
my mind. took me too
many silent screams,
too many apologies,
too many scars to realize
the universe wasn't
welcoming me, but
warning me. run, babe.
get out of there while
there's still some of
you left. took me
years to realize I wasn't
swept off my feet but
pulled down by the
undertow.

burned the
house down,
started with our bed.
shredded the pictures,
used our bones as
kindling. watched
the kerosene of
everything we
could have been
feed the flame.

I watch my life
turn to ash, watch
you desperately
cling to any little
piece that still
remains.

guilt inches across
my skin like thousands
of little spider legs -
pour cement
down my throat
and let me choke.
it's all I deserve.

burned down
my own castle
obliterated my
own empire
slaughtered
all my own
people and
they still tell
me the princess
can save herself?

the princess
destroyed
herself.

stuck in a bad dream,
a loop of nightmares of
losing you and leaving you
and I can't wake up.
I watch myself make
the same mistakes
over and over again.
watch myself ruin all
the things that once made
me so happy. watch
myself lay hands on
everything but you.
I just want to wake up
in our bed, in your arms,
while you kiss my face
and tell me everything
is going to be okay.

there are days
I want to tell you
how you broke me
and there are days
I remember
you don't deserve
the satisfaction

burns, seared
into my flesh -
every mistake,
every wrong
turn, every lie,
everything
I have ever done.
can you see it?
feel the heat of it?
I live in  fear
of the day
you touch
my skin again
and read it on me
like braille.

the rhythm something
like drunk dancing
on the edge of a cliff
lit up by moonlight -
afraid maybe you'll fall;
afraid maybe you won't.

chest is a graveyard
full of the ghosts of all
those that i have loved;
every rib bone a eulogy,
fingertips a prayer.
you'll find me on
my knees, begging
for forgiveness, for
rebirth - untying
every nerve, disconnecting
every bone. undress
this body, bare this
soul and you'll find empty
canvas, empty promise,
empty glass.

i hope
when you kiss her
all you taste is
me.

plucked
the flowers
from my ribs
whispering,
love me,
love me not.

they left blood
smears across
my skin, left
dead petals
at my feet.

left me the
altar of love
that will never
be mine.

fingertips pried my ribs apart
invited themselves in
with malicious whispers
of belonging, the kind that
make lonely hearts beat.
made a mess of the
pretty girl, the nightmare
in a white dress.
made myself a throne,
heir to my own wreckage.
crown of broken glass
and bloodstains, and
you wonder why
my kingdom is in shambles.

wash me out of
your sheets;
I never
belonged in
them
in the first place.

I keep trying to fix myself
by destroying everything
around me and I'm still
surprised every time I
find myself alone in my own
wreckage.

unzipped myself,
unzipped the fabric
of my realty,
let thirsty want
open doors into
rooms it did
not belong.
I unmade our
bed in my
desperation to
feel something
else. and still
all I am left
with is a hole
in my soul
shaped like you.

so torn between
two mouths
that I almost
would rather
choose neither.

I wish we could
unwrite stories.
I wish I could
undo these
paragraphs
and uncurve
these arcs. I
wish things
were different.
I wish we
were better.

the leaving was
meant to heal,
to relieve. but
again and again,
i am proved a
fool.

fragile is a matter of opinion.
lace is fragile, but so are bombs.
some fall silently to ruin when
destroyed, some take entire
cities down with them. press
your fingers against my lip,
and maybe i'll crumble. maybe
you won't survive long enough
to know the difference.

slowly
like falling
                  asleep
i fall out
of love
with
        you.

imsorryimsorryimsorry
this isn't what i mean
this is a strange dream
one of the ones where i
know i'm asleep and i
can't wake up i can't
wake - your light trips
too bright, takes my
breath away

but it hurts it hurts
it hurts like a room
full of thousands of
wings desperate for
escape it hurts like
too big limbs in too
small cage it hurts
like letting go it hurts
like wanting more it
hurts like why can't
i ever be happy

maps are for lost
fools, going in predictable
directions, too afraid
of the unknown.
they'll never step off
the concrete, never feel
the rub of untouched
brush against their skin
or the adrenaline of
where the **** am I?
they play by the rules,
in lust with their cookie
cutter by the book lives.

maps. charted journeys.
these things don't interest me.
i want scrapes up and
down my arms and legs
because i dared venture too
deep. i want bruises and
bleeding because i got lost,
too lost. i want to get lost.
i want to lose the map.
i want to lose my little
here dot, the one that
follows me, red and angry
because i don't stay on the
path to that cookie cutter
life.

i want off this route. this
one that leads only to
                                  y o u.

i am not sure what this
possession is, what
unholy demon has
taken hold of my skin,
my bones, my everything.

choking me, pushing me
out of my own body,
telling me how wrong it
is, how selfish that i won't
share such a vessel, that
i won't give it to those
who need it more.

she whispers in my mind,
she laces my blood with heavy
hatred and misdirected longing.
she tells me hope is a fallacy
and need is a crutch. she tells
me this life i live is a waste.
that i am waste and oh,
what a shame.

chains
tethers
the long
lines of
events
we call
fate  &
d e s t i n y.

here, there
is no fate.
no destiny.
only the foretold
ending of ruin.
i can pinpoint
every
little
dot
that got us here,
can see the lines
ahead.
we will never win.
not a single one of us.

push us together
                                  pull us apart

the storm of disconnect
    mine
        yours

hell and home
meet like
two              sides
of one sea,
split down
the mid      dle;
we're                  beautiful,
they say.
a natural
                           wonder.

the natural wonder of

s e p a r a t i o n ,

they fail to realize,
is night and day,
earth and water.

they don't feel the warmth
of your side, the cold of mine -
the nothingness of     white
and emptiness be t w ee n      u s.

and I can't help but wonder
what is so beautiful about two
hands that will never hold?

I wish my
name had
never fallen
from your
tongue.

maybe there are some of us
who are not meant to be
shared with other people.
we are always too something -
too much, too rough, too
quiet. maybe we are born
solid, instead of in parts. we
are born without soul mates
because we are already whole
on our own.

I keep writing about you.
all these words you don't
deserve, all this time. energy.
space. you deserve nothing
more of me, except maybe
this weight you left me with.
that, you deserve. I don't know
what it is. what links me to
you this way. do you feel me?
do you feel the inecessant
whine of my thoughts? the
childlike nature of it all,
elementary longing for a boy
for a boy for a boy for a
god forsaken pit of all the
things that wrecked me. yet,
here I am. well past midnight,
alone writing about you. they
say writing comes most easily
from broken heart, but mine
isn't really broken anymore.
a broken heart implies love,
and I don't have that for you
anymore. haven't for awhile.
that's not really the problem.
at least if I still loved you, I'd
know why you plague me still.
but I suppose these are questions
that don't have answers. maybe
time still does heal all wounds,
some just much slower than
others. but are you wound? am
I still wounded? I don't feel hurt
when I think of you. just...sore.
you know? how decades old
injuries have healed, but they
still inexplicably ache in the rain?
it's something like that. everything's
healed. these scars aren't pink and
shiny, they're old. almost invisible.
but they ache, sometimes. when
I'm alone. and the you I'm writing
to is the wrong one. the one that
broke me ages ago. the one that
deserves no more of my time. all
the while the you that loves me
sits in the other room, none the
wiser that these words pour
from my fingertips. that my
thoughts are on an old you. and
it's ****** up. I'm ****** up.
and I'm not sure which one of us
is more to blame.

i am not a girl.
i am forest fire,
i am hurricane -
quick and quiet,
leaving miles
and miles of destruction
in my wake. i am
wilderness trails at
blackened midnight,
hidden pockets and
silence and strangeness,
barren trees looking
more like skeletons
and all the things that
make your heart race.
i am broken fences
and unhinged doors.
i am unmade beds
and unlocked windows.
***** bathtubs and
empty light sockets.
i am heaven and earth
and hell and home, i am
the loss that plagues you
and the trauma that
breaks you and i am the
goddess you yearn for
lurking in the clouds.
i am the disgrace, the fallen
angel that makes you
regret not your last step,
but every single one
you've ever taken. i am
the burn and the rage and
i am the forest fire.
the one that licks at your
door and shatters your window.
the one that takes everything
from you, and yet you
still find yourself in the
quiet wreckage afterwards
whispering thank you.

waiting is
familiar, the
particular silence
of night, the
particular stillness
of music as
background to
dark. the hum
of outside and
the plaintive
whine of bathwater
down the drain.
it is the loneliness
of a blue screen,
waking up long
after the movie
finished and everyone's
gone to bed except you.
they leave you like
this, hollow and wanting
and it feels oddly
impersonal - like
leaving you wasn't
a conscious thought
and how improper
that you feel so slighted.
you are afterthought,
not worthy of goodnight
or goodbye or even
a glance on the way out.
you feel the weight
of tepid bathwater
past collar bones
past ribs, past
elbows, past ankles.
it leaks out along with
your hope, your hope
that someone is waiting
for you - it is only
you waiting for the
love you crave, waiting
for the answer to longing
in your bones and the
need that ripples
through your blood. it
is your passion for alone
yet the anguish at alone
and you are alone and alone
and alone and you wait.

burn this house to
the ground if it meant
keeping you out

sink the whole ****
ship if it meant
watching you drown

take this ground away
like an earthquake or
an atom bomb

just to spare the surface
of your existence that feels
something like slaughter.

do you remember the siren in my throat?
the howl of her, the empty vessel?
do you think of me sometimes,
think of how often my fingers
unmade the buttons at the
collar of your longing? how I
unlaced the cement that held
your damaged pieces together
into something resembling
personhood? how you painted
me with the blood of your amnesiac
sins, how I came to be the shrine
of all your broke and all your
bent? do you ever wonder how I
look now, draped around new
frames and coaxed by honey
that drips from new fingers?
do you ever miss those nights,
the half-light of the bathtub, the
shrine of bare thighs and the
drip drip drip as you watch me
melt into something black and
shimmering on the surface maybe
like blood maybe like nothingness and do
you desperately try to take handfuls
as I slip away like sinking ocean down the drain?

i'm stuck
(again)
hoping for
something
to get better
(again)
and i'm left
sitting alone
praying for
escape
praying for
relief
praying
(again).

maybe it's different.
sometimes it feels
like an entirely
different skin;
sometimes it feels
like the i washed
the old one with something
new and bright
red, and it's almost
a convincingly new shade
but it's still got all
the same holes,
the same tatters as
the last one.

i'm so scared of
getting stuck in the
same rut, of wasting
so much of my life
i could have been using
to be happy.

but maybe i am not
meant to be happy
maybe i am destined
only for suffering
for loss and loneliness.
maybe i will only ever
find this nothingness.
this desperation for meaning.
i don't know.
i don't know.
(again)
i don't know.

i lost my heart
somewhere back there
trudging along,
knee-deep in mud
and anger. you were
my guiding light,
a false prophet,
leading me deeper
into the void and
telling me, so gently,
that we were on the
cusp of paradise. and
honey, you spoke like
an angel - whispered words
of honey and agony, and i
hung on every sip.
drawing me in with
tightly laced tendrils
of poison, whole body
ravage, an uninvited
suicide. i don't exist
anymore, not sure i ever
did. parts of my dissolved
along with my heart,
shriveling into contorted
reality. watching myself
slip away into the
ether - watching your
diligent mask slide
off, fat chunks of
rotten meat and when
i saw your face i was
not filled with regret.
only mourning for the
heart that was once in
you. the heart long ago,
like mine, shriveled by
a hungering, false prophet
desperate for the next victim.

and now i watch him
hanging on my words the
way i once did yours and
i wonder what kind of
bullet it takes to ****
the devil.

all i pray
is you to
suffer
as i do.

help me out
swallowed up
by oceans and arms
and pulled under
by the weight of
need and want and
guilt and sinking and
each little finger loops
around me like the
rusted metal of years-
old chains and i am a prisoner
of this translucent
wasteland of regret
and longing

the white light isn't
savior, it's hot burning,
melting away the layers of
everything that warps

kiss the
cheek
don't watch
them go
bite your
knuckles
hold in the
cry never
ask them to
stay never
ask them
to stay.

love becomes
afterthought
a heartless
endeavor,
a knee-****
response,
becoming
synonymous
with goodbye
and hello
until the word
hello fades
from memory
and the last
I love you
is your last
goodbye.

this is how she writes
slanted and sideways
too full of liquor and love
and longing. she smears
it into the walls of her
heart, paints the insides
of her skull - and yet,
everything remains
blackened. the warmth
never laces the cold,
never undoes the laces
of her desperate skin.
her bones crack, fingers
splitting like broken
tree limbs, the floor
looks something like
a ****** scene - decimated
forests and bloodless
bodies of all the boys
whoever used lies to love.
she is an empty house,
abandoned, old and aching.
tiptoes up the stairs of
her broken spine, wondering
how her front-door soul
could have wandered
into such a lost and lonely
place. her bones crack,
the walls shudder. this is
life, this life is an island
and her hands are sinking
ships - hard enough to
wound, soft enough to
never fill. just like her
insides. just like her outsides.

all I want
in this life
is to no
longer be in
possession of
this life.

he tells me I am beautiful
as if that is my only value.
I am a body, I am a soul,
I am a heart that beats for
more than a face, more than
a shape. I am a mind that
aches to be loved after the
curves roll away and the
face curdles and I wear the
life I've lived proudly - I ache
to be more than a physical
treat, I ache to know that
once my beauty fades that
my heart and mind will still
be valued as much as the
vessel they exist in.

he plays my nerves
like piano
tense but pliantly
plucked because
his hands are a rhythm
of skin, warm and
tender and he
tells me me he loves
me with a mouth
like honey as
if he has never
swallowed a graveyard
as if his heart isn't
an empty chasm of
rot and cobweb.

wait
flows from my
body like
blood
skin left ragged
asking why
as if my
shallow pulse
needs more than
desperate mouth
to mouth
whispering to
each other what
is the point?
but there's only
silence left
longer than a
lingering *how
are you still
like this?

do you remember the first time?
the grey skies? the gentle morning light?
do you remember the first time you
held my hand or the first time we kissed?
do you remember the rush of the airport
around us yet how time seemed to slow
between us? the softness, the sweetness?
the tender tension?

it is not you I miss, don't misunderstand,
but that feeling. the crossing of oceans, the
constant newness, the always evolving
landscapes. I miss the permanence of
destination and the impermanent swarm
of airports. I miss the anticipation, the
adrenaline; the longing, and the opposite
of longing.

I miss the time before the violence and the
blood. it's like we, the us, began to die, but it
was slow and corrosive, an awful heaviness,
an eternal decay. I was too scared of a mercy
killing, and you were far too selfish. when
we finally... finally let go, we let go of a
mangled unrecognizable corpse.

I didn't think to grieve the loss. I didn't think
to honor the grey skies or the gentle morning
light. didn't think to say goodbye to the
anticipation or the longing. I cursed your name,
your demons. I smashed us to bits. swallowed
the demons. it was so much easier than feeling
anything else, but what a brutal cocktail. no
wonder I haven't really let you go. no wonder
you haunt me. I never laid you to rest.

I never laid us to rest.

the calm rumble
of your heartbeat
against my temple
is enough to silence
a thousand storms

I drink my brain
into coma
so maybe
I can get some
silence
some rest in
the catacombs
of my soul
I drink because
maybe this
time I will wake
up from some
years long
dream a better
version of mysef
or someone
entirely new
I drink and
it hurts

your shirtless anti-christ
the cigarette hanging from
the corner of his mouth

while he tells you sandpaper
sweet nothings he leaves the black
smears of his tobacco fingertips
left along the curve of your hip

and you breathe him in like
divine, let the smell of him
settle in your lungs like cancer
he is love he is life he is
here only to destroy you

how often I find myself
feeling buried yet I never
find myself a shovel.
I have two good hands
and one rabbit heart
and it's so hard to
find air beneath
water, but I try.
dog paddeling
hard enough that
I never quite sink but
always right on the
cusp of running out
of breath. I find myself
holding paint brush
above canvas but
nothing ever paints
itself the way I see it
in my head and my
words, pen poised
above paper, never
elicit the view of my
mind or quiet the tornado
in my soul.

i am the blood-soaked
blankets beneath your bed,
and I am the rusted knives
you keep hidden in that
box in your garage. i am
all your ***** thoughts
and ugly wants. i am that
itch creeping up your spine
and the cold tingle in your
fingertips. i am the compulsion
keeping you awake at night
and the obsession in your
every move. i am your
darkest secrets and your deepest
desires. i am the ghost that
haunts your waking moments
and i am the skeletons hidden
in your garden.