i keep scratching at my skin
like i might be able to take it off
out in the garden, the chickens are scratching at the dirt
trying to turn it soft
in my memories, my mom is trying not to scratch the discs
that contain my favorite songs
but each song i love is hers
so we protect each other in our wrongs
i still like the idea
that i might become better than this
once i can finally peel off every layer of muscle, each piece of skin
plant it within the land, freshly tilled
allow new memories to grow, so that i might forget what we once had
i still see orchids
so bright blue they kill the bits of gold within any doubts i read between your eyes
the back of your palm on my warm forehead
the tears when i learned it was only dye
but the walls are all the same color
her house was never our home
but i miss when it felt like you loved me
i missed not feeling alone
06.11.23
was there a point in which it ever felt rhythmic
a steady beat, keeping time with the mythic
a beast gouging out a soul
only to find its claws within its own
lying down on the asphalt, warm to the touch
mouth to the sky, hoping to consume the moon's love
she spins and she shakes
and she's lighting up fireworks within her ribcage
she misses you
she tells me so in dreams where you're drowning in an ocean so blue
it's distorted, it always is
because it isn't just you that she'll miss
she yearns for you to rely on her again
when she could pull out a string of apologies from your each and every breath
before you met her eyes without caution
oh dear
what have you done?
07.05.23
if i craved love the way i craved you i might never be loved again
if i craved you the way i crave love maybe you'd remember i am meant to be loved
you don't know what love is
and i don't know how to keep pretending i do
i think there are times i see it cross between people around me
like strings of light, like the way a spider might drape silk from one corner to another
it happens between people's eyes
between their teeth
between their hands
and i sit, not the spider, not the corners, not the silk
craving only to be the fly, to at least be wrapped in the threads of everyone else
but i find myself only able to watch
this is where you are, beside me
there isn't a thread tying us together
there never has been
we are drawn here, under the great web that surrounds us so completely, only by the fact that neither of us seem to be able to reach out to it
you are not gentle and i am not brave
you have torn every thread you've made contact with
i am terrified i will do the same
04.09.24
i want to tell you everything
each cloud that passes by shows no real passage of time
we could stay here forever
i'll talk for as long as you'll just keep breathing right next to me
i never knew how to raise my voice
but i will carry it strong and high over the rising wind if it'll mean you can still hear me
i need to tell you about life
about how wonderful it is not to die
i need to tell you about my friends
and all of the people you haven't met
i need you to smile at me while i ramble on and on
and you remember why it was all worth it in the first place
because even though you've failed, you've also tried
you've tried so hard
you're falling asleep
it's still a meadow filled to the brim with liquid sunlight
but you're tired, so i'll carry you as far as i can
and then i'll wait
and you'll disappear
you always do
so as the clouds, the trees, the sunlight all disappear with you
i'm waiting on the curb by a stoplight
glancing up from the cold, wet asphalt
up into the dark, consuming void
waiting for you to stumble your way past me
so i can rescue you from the passing cars
get you home safe
tell you stories you won't remember when you're sober
hope you'll still need me when you are
06.14.23
i'd never forgive myself if my skin became the same texture as yours.
there's no fun in a vice when i see you in the mirror of the bar.
my heart beats so fast i begin to puke.
but i'll swallow it all back down to avoid seeing your eyes in the water.
10.30.24
the lights are signals that echo what we've heard over and over
you're saying it's alright now, we won't come out, it's warmer down here
there must be a way forward, you say
we respond, thank you for the stars, but we must return underground
10.17.24
my first love had pretty brown eyes and smiled like the sun was ours
he held my hand gently, and only after asking twice
he taught me how to navigate the world in a way so the world would accept me
late at night, he held me, even though i didn't know how to hold him back
my second love was hard to look directly at
but i always obscured myself from him, too
appearances aside, we would dream of running somewhere together
forgetting all modernity, all mortality
rejecting the concept of humanity and only staying in each other's sight
i had to imagine he was lying next to me because i was so lonely i could not fall asleep
but when he told me he might love me, i told him i was scared
he said he would wait
and so i took my time making sure i did everything right
i would have slept at his feet
i would have let him tear into my skin
and when i finally got a chance to hold his hand
it was only a brief moment where he'd actually hold me, too
he told me he would wait
but i suppose i made him wait too long
my third love was a boy with handsome, brown eyes
who's hands did their best to be more gentle with me
but these hands do not grasp the world the way he wishes they would
and this means his hands land at my throat
i might have given him everything
he just never knew how to ask the right way
04.20.23
i'm unsure of where i am
i think i've been here for a while
but things are shifting around so fast
i can't seem to grasp onto anything
every once in a while there's a sharp pain
somewhere near my heart
the colors are shifting
blinking, flowing
and i'm only helplessly floating through it all
feeling my skin peel off
and reattach in other places
with each pain
i feel the blood through my veins
feel something spread through them
like tangling vines are encasing themselves within me
i know somewhere inside of myself that i am growing
but knowing doesn't make the pain lessen any
but suddenly i'm in a dark room
rolling a marble down a ramp
the marble and the ramp are made of something strange
something like a black, solidified void
i'm trying to decipher a way to make it work correctly
as though it is somehow my fault that it isn't working
as i go to pick up the marble again, it begins to melt
it's all over my hands
i'm panicking
i can't get it off of me
and now everyone can see the mistakes i've made
all of my failures
eternally painted onto my skin
and then i'm in a classroom
it's dark, again
and i can't seem to recognize any of the faces of those around me
i'm waiting for something
waiting for someone
but i can't even remember who it is that i'm hoping will show up beside me
and the person who does show up
isn't who i was wishing for
but who was i even wishing for?
and why have i ever believed that i could turn this person into them?
and now it's a ditch
i'm sitting under a bridge
there's a heart, spray painted onto the concrete next to me
and my tears are falling onto it
from my tears, i am desperate for something to grow
but he's gone
and i can't bring him back
and i'm back in my old bedroom
it's been a true eternity since i've been here
the room is dark save for a string of soft white lights above the bed
butterflies circle the makeshift canopy draped around it
there's someone i'm hoping for
someone caring, loving, kind
someone who will make even a dreary place feel comforting
someone who can hold me without suffocating me
someone who can speak to me without breaking me
but when the door opens, the only thing that stumbles in
is a monster
it's breathing is erratic
it scatches at its skin like it's trying to rip it off
it's shaking
and it tries to speak to me
but i can't understand the words
and it tries to touch me
but i am terrified
and then i'm in someone's arms
being held in the way i had wished
but all i feel is guilt
because that monster should've done this
but all i could think to do was run away
then i am in the prettiest casket one could lie within
glass with gold details
lying inside with a bed of soft leaves and flowers
inside a room of the one place i feel safe
and still feeling guilty
because i still feel out of place
04.05.22
i hear the city makes a lovely sort of music from the people it consumes
so many voices, so many hearts, so many things happening and it's all because of us
if you pressed your ear to the dark black road all those feet are marching on, you'd hear a rhythm to it all
but i haven't known a city well enough to hear it like this
in fact, i haven't known anyone this well at all
i imagine how easy it must be to lose yourself to the crowd, to the harmony it all becomes when you let yourself be consumed
but all i hear is your heartbeat
it might be the first i've ever heard like this
this, i've decided, is because it's the same four beats as my own
the words we speak lie over it all in different melodies, but the bass line is the same
it's the sort of thing i never thought to listen for until i heard it
06.30.24
if the rhythm doesnt doesn't match the melody, there's a dissonance that echoes across the reach of space
skipping like stones across stars
consuming and inhaling and becoming all there is
i'll point it out to you when it happens
if you look close enough, could you watch with me as the clouds fell into the sea?
the waves will rush over us from our spot upon the moon
if you watch down below, you can see the empty streets of once full cities
now only crawling with bugs that just wouldn't die
i tend to latch myself onto the things i do not understand
we could pretend like we were gods
or we could pretend like we were only flowers growing at different times, different colors, different seasons
but side by side all the same
or we could pretend like we were only friends
or i could pretend i did not spend my time like loose coins found beside the curb carving circles into the earth, trying to replicate both the sun and the moon, and figure out just which one you were
and where i belonged amongst them
paying a poor cashier in a handful of grime-covered pennies for a vice i did not consume
trading the vice for a single flower
made into a bouquet with only the prettiest of weeds i could pull from someone else's backyard
i will apologize in advance
like i keep expecting there to be something you do not already know
i've been sitting on the edge of the highway, watching cars go by so fast i couldn't tell you the significance of the lives contained within them all
i do hope you would join me
05.22.23
i curl up into myself
hide my eyes and my heart from the world by lying beneath a blanket
and i become an entity that is self contained
and i forget that you keep asking if you can hold my body
and i forget that i don't know how to tell you that i wish no one would ever touch this body again
there is no where you could touch that wouldn't stain your skin
there is nowhere you could touch that wouldn't cause us both great pain
unless you wanted to carve away my skin for me
and place your hands underneath my ribs to keep them warm
but you don't want to hurt me
and maybe that's why we aren't right for each other
11.13.22
it's like gravel under my knees
i can feel my blood soaking into the dirt
staining it, turning it the color i am clawing to be
i once called the concrete home
now i let it mutilate my tongue as i beg it to accept me back
licking across the ground like i can drink out of it everything i have lost
dragging my teeth against it like if i break enough of what is left, it will remember me for what i was
the leaves above me are watching me, nails scraping, tongue digging into the dirt between the cracks, consuming ants and sand and rainwater
dirty puddles now swirled with what was pulsing under my skin
the leaves do not turn, they only move the way the wind says they should
and as the wind tells them where they should blow, i hear it speak in their voices, a whistle that tells me i am gnawing on only rocks and insects
i wish i could believe this was only a rock, that he was only an insect, that she was only an ant
i've been dreaming over and over of what i used to be, of what i used to have
and sure, the leaves don't worry about dirt or bugs, but i cannot live a life where i am only afraid of falling to the ground
what i fear is that the ground i so desperately crave
will not recognize me as it once did
04.02.24
i'm so angry and i don't know why.
you're just trying to find poetry in things that aren't poetic.
i love you, i wish i could say that.
i do know why, it's because i hate her.
everything is poetry.
well i don't, like, love love you, you're just important to me.
i don't hate her, i just don't want her around all the time.
not everything needs to be poetic, sometimes things can just be pretty.
i've fallen in love with everything important to me.
if she's not around all the time, then i have no one else, though.
i need to prove there's meaning in everything, but the words i write just make me feel gross.
if i stopped falling in love so quick, i might find anything i care about long enough to last.
we'd both be better people with some distance. we've been in each other's space for so long we're suffocating each other. she's suffocating me. i can't breathe
if there's not meaning in every small thing, then there must be meaning in what it all means when we zoom out. we're like stars in an infinite space.
the problem is never the falling, it's always the falling out. i know you weren't ever going to love me, but i like to think i could always be the exception to any rule.
she's not suffocating you, you're just trying not to breathe. you keep holding your breath waiting for something better, but you know you're not going to find anything better. holding your breath is just the performance, your way of visualizing self destruction in an attempt to generate pity.
we're not the stars, though, and our reality is finite. we can see the stars, but they can't see us. you can't run from it all by detaching, by making yourself an entity far from this world.
you made me feel so perfect, so complete. i like to think of myself as the kind of person who could fall in love with anyone. the problem is never the falling, it's the falling out. i know better than anyone i wouldn't have continued to love you this long if you ever loved me back. but right now you're all i have.
she just doesn't understand me.
the stars don't hear you, you have to fix it yourself.
love isn't really something i understand anyways.
i wish i could stop feeling angry.
i wish things made sense without the words to describe them.
i wish you were my savior.
10.09.24
he isn't a man, he's a boy
just a boy
learning how to make mistakes
learning how easy it is to make mistakes a habit
learning how hard it is to break the habit
he's a boy learning how hard he can punch before he breaks something
how hard he can punch before he breaks himself
he's asking for pity and i can't seem to give it to him
i can give him an excuse
i can give him money and vices
i can tell him he'll be better one day
but until he's fixed, i don't want him to be my problem
not when he's so often the cause of his own
i tell him i love him, but he never believes me anyways
he shouldn't
not yet
10.15.24
it’s a pile of meat, it is nothing but a pile of meat. it’s still got a beating heart, and its blood is leaking out of my mouth. i’m consuming it, and as i do so, it is eating me from the inside out. i can’t stop listening to your voice as i chew, and crunch through bone and meat. my own heart is beating so fast, i fear i may be panicking. someone is going to find me like this. you are going to find me like this. an animal, devouring because that is all it knows how to do. you taught me to laugh and to speak and to connect like i could be anything more than a beast. it’s pulsing in the pile that lies beneath my hands. we are becoming a puddle together. i only ever wanted to love you. no, i didn’t want love. i only ever wanted to be you. i only ever wanted to show the world a face that looked like yours. wear your skin as though it could fit my own. i love you and i want to be you. you are consuming me from the inside out.
07.15.24
the tone clicks beats one
then two
then three
then four
and your voice drones on, unaware of the rhythm
i feel the music more than i feel your words
she's singing, but there is no melody
in fact, i'm not sure i can hear her voice at all
her lips are moving, but i think i've finally found peace in her silence
and as i turn back to you, the beat stops
no more metronome of white noise
only you
no more melody of a girl i once was
only me
and as i turn to you, i ask
"will you still love me"
your voice continues on, you aren't listening
i told you the deepest part of me, the part i least understand
and now you wont stop
no matter what i ask you can't seem to hear my voice, you're only reading my lips
i'm only reading her lips, i can't hear her sing
can you hear her sing? is this why you wont listen to me?
can you only hear her voice?
what will it take for you to love me and not her?
what will it take for you to accept that she no longer exists, and that i am a perfectly fine adaptation of what she was
we all grow, we all die
the beat comes in again, and we're both lost to time
05.11.24
i'm clawing into your hips
you're climbing onto my thighs
i'm biting into your neck
your tongue is in my eye
i'm drinking your blood
you're pouring your spit into my throat
you punch my chest
when i go to hit you back, the mirror shatters
i'm all that is left