Your hands are a spare room for grass blades and wilting flowers —
they wound just the same now,
die just the same.
One day we will too.
I breathe you in,
stale air and brimstone fill my lungs
like the flood that came after us —
it has our name on it:
a misguided retribution.

I remember leaving,
the soil turning parched as our soles,
the shadows' first treason,
the cold, cold air,
the distance between our clothed body,
drifting away like continents.
Soon, you will speak in tongues,
a language you cannot love me in
and still, I'll call your name, softly,
like a desperate counter-curse.

I am still here,
a darkened rib for the devil to collect.
I am yours first, before I am his.
But you are worth the fire and the first sin it's ever seen
the crash site, the rock shards buried on my arms —
I am good as a dead woman — a wide-eyed mortal
I will walk to you on skipping stones,
sinking stones
with my bones set on fire and the world up in flames —
this is our undoing in the colors of a sunset
but it's nothing we've seen before.

I know good. I know evil.
I know flames and the way it burns. I know death and its finality.
I know a lot of things now,
but only one of them matters, Adam —

I know you are worth the fall.

Perhaps inspiration is the problem.
I have always danced with words.
Blending syllables and wit
Bending sentences at will.
Firing ink from a loaded pen.
Makes for good imagery.
As I flap the pages of this notebook.
Dropping tiny daggers with this tongue.
Trying to master the craft of symbolism.
With sarcasm.
Playing with these words like hooked on phonics.
Molding them into a scene.
Of play on words.
With less drama.
Maybe even worth less.
Like pay-less.
As we walk in eachothers shoes.
To better understand the roads we travel.

I look back on the years spent.
Like cheap coupons.
Cutting out sections of my life.
Living between black and white lines.
Expectations paper thin.
Hoping the change I had.
Would cover the difference I needed.
The dark unknown hiding fees.
Banking on the fact.
That I never check my blind spot.
Blindsided by percentages.
Sideswiped by statistics.
Its a numbers game.
What are you willing to waste.
On trying to make a life worth living
Throwing away moments like singles at a *******.
But only the ones unneeded.
Needless to say..
One could go broke.
Arguing semantics.

some things, too soft for my careless hands — nectarine kisses and sunlit skin. the quiet highs of being held, like dahlias dying after a month. vervain wrists dipped in a borrowed prose. your heart — and mine; my love, some things, too soft to not break in my hands.

slice my tongue until the pieces resemble flower petals — until poems tremble on my very lips. on summer afternoons, they will look like the dried amaranths on your bedside table — in a city apartment you left. slice my tongue until the pieces resemble smoky quartz. it will sit quietly — each side showing the wild and quiet ways of aching. slice my tongue until it heals its wounds — until the sunset casts what's left of its light, and maybe my state of decay will finally look beautiful.

is there a way out of here other than the sudden violence of tearing through my skin? if i  find an escape route one day, i swear to god, i would leave even the calmest sunsets behind.

i'm still building myself up on top of breaking skin. oh how easy it is to slip on this shapeless, humming loneliness until it takes the form of my skin. i'm a forsaken deity, learning to come to terms with what's left of her ruins. crumbling, i tie them together — they buckle in place like my knees: a sight too fragile to be a worldly wonder. i'm still learning to be gentle. i'm still learning to forget all the ways i have ever hurt myself. and beyond this corpse-cold bed, these corpse-cold hands — the world goes on spinning. restless as my thoughts, yet immobile as my feet. it goes on spinning — leaving, never slowing itself down for anyone.

these words come out of my tongue, in fragments. i pick them like aphids on a rose — maybe it's the closest thing i'll get to healing.