Your silence sticks into me like knives,

my body a sheath for something too empty to name

and I’m too full of it to move,

too tired to make my lungs into anything but bellows

that others must fan

Oh drag me up

against the stars

press your lips to these weary bones and breathe into me life

Mine keeps sticking to my throat,

hollowing me out and leaving me shuddering

in my skin

There will be a day when whole won’t mean three quarters you,

but for now you’re gone and I’m barren

I’d forgotten what it was like to not fit, and now I remember

There’s nothing more to say

She was roasting alive when she realized her mistake-- it was like she'd swallowed a ball of fire, all shallow breaths and burning from the inside out, bursts of red at the end of every exhale. Love, she thought, isn't something you should die from. It shouldn't be all edges and flames, and it shouldn't just be desire.

this is elegant and steady

a waltzer’s one-two deliberacy in a stream of notes–

surrender scrawled out in lines and circles

i’m handing you my wrists; my bones are no longer my own, so sing

and i’ll melt for you, hook my lungs

and pull wherever you’d like

at this point, i’m just along for the ride

i’m just here so i know i’m not on fire and choking

on my ashes

can you give that to me?

a haven in between the lines?

a place where i don’t think about what i’ve written

and when i dream about love it’s only the right kind?

when you built this place

you imagined a funeral so i’m asking you

hold my head for just a little while

until i find someplace more permanent to lay it down

hold my lungs until i can breathe

fingernails slice down my sternum,

to rend, to cleave, to break in two

my ribs, picked over, do i strum

a prettier song i do renew

hair like webs snap spider spun

my wrists, as whetstones, sharpen and crack

fingers reach in, snatch out one by one

bits of the pieces that i lack

teeth gnashing, tendering flesh

a bloody, twisted, bodily mess

of bone and heart am i

not an act of violence but of unmaking,

undoing and in it's purest sense, erasing

no sweeter mercy, no more merciful lie

there’s neon blue underneath my fingernails and between my toes

and cloyingly sweet behind my teeth

i’ve got words rolling around my mouth

like marbles, darling

you want to hear a secret? pick one

they’re hanging in strings from around my wrists,

digging into my pulse point

like teeth,

my skin breaking like the crisp of an apple

trust me when i say i’m not going to stop you–

so by all means, go ahead

and take a bite

Things she loved: slow music, warm drinks, deliberate words,

ripe guavas, nails painted with tiny flowers,

messy sketches, curved noses, the smell of banana bread baking,

witty conversations, superheroes, tiny handwriting,

feeling your lungs expand but not burst, and

friends and family above all else.

This is all that's important.