watch me get lost

where it is quiet, so quiet

and where I drown in the pit

of my own stomach

watch me listen

watch me watch

my fingers grow to roots that hold me back

that clutch my belly

and stretch the skin of my broken pieces

that tear my hair

and tremble at the base of my cold neck

watch me shudder

watch me fold to you

watch me turn my back

watch me feel

my fingers mold to the line of my spine

as I handcuff myself to my own humanity.

as you exhale the darkness

I inhale the way you move

so you can break me in my curves

where the softest pieces of me

are left with the impressions of your bones

so learn me

touch me

know me

kiss me

hold me

want me

in all ways biological and beautiful

remembering that this my curse

and I fear that as your teeth graze my skin

my poison will fill your mouth

you want to breathe me

bite me

swallow me whole

well you are shredding my flesh

with your tongue

and I am splitting to understanding...

I will never be enough for you.

without knowing, you are louder today

than you were yesterday

your lack of attention

breaks my bones

did you know you are stepping

on my toes?

sure, we can play mercy

bend back my fingers baby

and it's the way you breathe

good god, it is that you breathe..

my blood escapes me in a waxy mess
to become the candles that I see by
it is a perfect kind of pain
an anger set in sanitized tubes
here is the experimentation
hit or miss in guess and check
I will be the blinded shattered horrid
when the pulsing of my cells
is lessened by your lips

so that it ceases to be a question

of the skin set loose from my teeth

and becomes a question

of the safety in my veins

I will find the answer to breath

in your quiet desperation

the silence changes the course of things

and a shoulder is bared

to break the light

it is harsh and cold as metal against flesh

like a paper cut

to the bloodied pieces of everything

I am no longer able to see straight

and waxed blood swallows and defines my experience.

rounded bite marks break the lips of reason

I suppose I see the logic

in life [a break from death]

in death

[a break from life]

the edges are soft and I'm on the verge

in this padded cell of mine

today I'm imagining car wrecks

feeling glass shatter in my straight jacket

I'm on tiptoe

syringe to skin and muscle to trigger

and I find that I am an observer

noticer of the little things

participant through the looking glass

taking notes to live, to breathe, to break

you know the reality set 

by the patterns in my heartbeats

the despair chewing my veins

please, for my sake hold me down

as the writhing of my cells 

breeds disgusting logic

I swear that life

is just [a break from death...]

you're eating at my heart tonight

with your thick hair and esoteric eyes

and your words peel me back

to pressure your lips

I swear I'll play nice

with my magic fingers on your cheeks

let me slip along your skin

and teach you the words to love me

it's all in the palms of our hands

and I wonder if our existence can breathe

in the passion of all things new

there's a softening of the flesh

it's where need creates beauty

and iron muscle melts to hope

my intensity speaks clearly

and I think that I might need you

the sharpening edges of emotion

sigh the semantics of understanding...

in this moment,

I'm here with you

and it is enough.

it's the harshness of my voice

raking in spurts of song

welcome to the place where I weep

as silent screams swallow the mouthpiece of reason

I'm good at keeping the metal in my veins

and letting my own words bleed me dry

the desperation slips through my skin

can you promise me that I'm good at this?

in the harshness of my voice

I seek you out

and wish and hope

to someday hear you break my sorrow.

if I tilt my head back
I can meet the sky
and drift away as my insides explode in stars
I'm sure there will be vindication
and I won't have to see myself break down
it's hard for me to be okay
and now I'm tilting my head back
and driving with my eyes closed
I'm letting myself loose
to exist in the chaos, and let it all happen
the rush of air
explains my mistakes
I knew I could breathe
and I think I'll be okay
in raindrops on bare skin
in words escaping sweetly parted lips
in love behind the teeth of everything
in paint spattered hands
in ink that flows from the heart
in laughter
in light
in life
I find myself dancing between the words
that make it all beautiful
and today,
I feel infinite ★

I always thought I knew you best

but the pieces of you that fell apart at my fingertips

are now tucked neatly in your best disguise

I always thought I knew you best

when your skin was close enough to breathe

and your eyes saw me through a kaleidoscope

when elves and ents flickered softly in two dimensions

and goose bumps distracted wandering lips

when private whispers were enough

when love filled the lightest parts of us

when the future was just written word

when we were okay

just being okay together

and when you and me

you and I

spun in circles holding hands in our minds

from across a country's distance

and we were okay

just being okay together...

I suppose it's just hard

at the end of things

to be able to say that I just miss you.

I miss you so much.

and that is okay.

and I am okay.

I'm okay 

I'm okay

I'm okay

I'm okay.

someday the conviction of repetition will soothe the rest, and maybe I'll believe it myself.

I don't want you anymore. 

I just want to miss you. 

it's one of those days
where time goes slow and I'm okay...
I would have taken you to see the stars
on a night where I would be okay
but you shook my gentle fingers
from your lips
and shackled my wrists to my mouth
I would have held your head
and rubbed your sore temples
but you looked in my eyes
and turned flesh to logic
letting blue burn like fire in your reason
I would have taken your hand in mine
and drank the cold from your bones

leaving scratches in your muscles

and decision in your pores
with my skin split and my senses reeling
you kissed me so fast that my head spun
and I couldn't make sense
of the words you etched into my brain
like a crooked coat hanger
your tongue destroyed my skin
and I'm left shredded softly
on the boundaries of what is real
you shook me awake
with your whispering words and esoteric stare
and stepped away to pressure the lines
time is slow, and I'm okay
because you pushed the button
that brought me to life
and the stitches are leaving me
in the hopes that your stolid arms
will return to my spine-less self
I promise that I am okay today

I promise that I am okay today
but I would have taken you to see the stars...

let's leave it be
to let the sun speak the longest words
and the cold creep forward on spindle legs
with marbled eyes
and an absent tongue
I've tried to explain it
though I feel stripped of reasoning,
naked in the hands of humanity
I was enough once
at the innocence of beginnings
with marbled eyes
and shaking hands
I gauge your distance
and fall apart
like the rest of everything
again you fumble harshly with my slippery heart
blindly, as it were.

it's like arts and crafts
with broken glass
and metal shards of words
I'm sorry that I am weak
my heart, my worth
colors splayed in shredded paper
so use the canvas
that is my skin
as if I make more sense
with fingernails made of cotton
eyes of yarn
heart of wax
courtesy of your choice
I'm sorry that I am weak
and that I find the desperation
in the shaking hands of humanity
and that I point out the noises
that keep me awake at night
I'm sorry that I am weak
that I am scared
that I am young
I'm sorry that I am weak
that I live for a minute
and die to breathe your skin
I'm sorry that I am weak
I'm sorry that I am weak
that I want
that I breathe
that I love
that I tremble and blend
with the rest of everyone
and that we are never enough...
I am never enough
I am sorry
I am sorry
I am sorry that I am weak.

this is the reason
and here is why we fall apart
from the lies
in the heartbeats in our lips
we stem to reason
in the logic of a minute
hide me
please hide me
when you're digging for the razor
buried in the muscle of your heart
just break me down
and split me open
my blood holds all the answers
and I know we're okay
we're always okay.

the limit shatters me
and the cold collapses these lungs
I'll just hold your hand
it's all I have...
measuring tape replaces my bones
to gauge the numbers
that make us old and tall and fat
bottle after bottle
smile after song
and we're learning learning
to love just love
on the wings of what is simple
here's what we know
here's what we know
I'm holding your hand
and it's all I have
all I have.

we are midnight star-gazers
dressed in the clothes
of those less broken
our bodies wet with heavy rain
that breathes our names
in the silenced darkness
can we paint all these pictures
and smooth the canvas over our eyes and mouths
it's just a memory
it's just a memory
and I breathe it breathe it
breathe the canvas
to stretch it out
taught, over my face
until I just can't
breathe it breathe it
breathe the canvas anymore
breathe it breathe it
breathe the canvas anymore
you've always been the blinking red light
fading slowly in my rearview mirror
my option for reverse is gone
and all I've got is drive...
where the fuck are you?
my lonely headlights lead me on
my lonely headlights lead me on
and I just can't breathe it breathe it
breathe the canvas anymore.

I'm under a purple sky again
bruising, just bruising to breathe
as paper cuts my tongue
I can't escape your easy smile
a mouth full of words
determines the blue of my eyes
passion drowning my reason
and singeing the lining of my brain
I can't escape your easy smile
I can't escape your easy smile
or the simplicity of floating on
I'm bound heavy to this earth
while you live free in the sky
I'm not okay
I'm never okay
it's all just broken road
under my purple sky
under my purple sky.

it's just the touch of a finger
tracing over softly shaped lips
brushing thick hair from clouded eyes
slipping from ankle to thigh
and capturing seconds in sighs
we breathe easy in the mellow
as metal pressures skin
on the forehead of the new
I'm an experience waiting
to be born into your patient hands
frazzled and lonely
in the wake of a broken love
I am the result of my self-destruction
of Polaroids and darkened rooms
of too much sleep and stars in my eyes
my demise, the passion that burns me
through everything I do
intensity breathes my name
and sends me tripping lightly
into your gentle embrace
"Hello, we are alive and lovely"
take me in, just take me in
save me from these shattered prophecies
and sweep me slowly to higher ground
to laugh and play
and breathe and dream...
the common denominator
3+4 and 99
to break us down
and piece us together
I'm home and I'm okay
dancing slowly through the holes in your ears
if only to be
alive and lovely with you.

be the breath I can't hold in
sit in the palm of my hand
and sleep on the skin of broken hearts
it's just our sickened prophecy
to listen to it all move on
and talk to daisies dying slowly
as if we would understand
as their petals leave them naked
it's just our sickened prophecy
and we can't see why they write it so
with all our electronic books
and voices wired to our brains
to tell us the things we already knew
and read us stories we memorized long ago
it never mattered more than now
but it's our sickened prophecy
and we're running, running
heavy on the strings that lift us at our elbows
we were never enough
it's just our sickened prophecy...

I realized that I make almost no sense.

it's the poetry
and the lies, the lies
in all the colors of beauty
and written word
heavy in chalk on my hands
the broken, the broken
you and I
and written word
heavy in ink on my hands
the blackened truth
hides sweetly in pieces of broken silence
spread like love
to the edges of us
I always tried to find you there
in the sharpness of your closed lips
it's all in written word
and still, I seek you, seek you out
it's all in shattered mornings
and fractured nights
when the quiet can only grace my ears
and break my heart
it's always been in written word
where I follow you to know you
and pull like needles
the love from your skin
always written word
only written word
and the heaviness you leave in my heart.

these are the days
that break me down
the ones that leave me
choking on love
when will you learn?
suffering creates meaning
and the shit that pulls us down
makes us the most interesting
I had the beading pliers
that I used to bash it in
my best friend, the hourglass
fixing my heart
with grains of sand
can time take me on?
I broke it
I broke it

I broke it

I broke it

when will you learn?