i never saw myself as a city until you

little hometown boy

with lazy quiet saturday morning eyes and i know my highway lips

are only spilling background noise white noise traffic noise

isn't it too loud where my heart is?

why are you still listening? you are fireplace chimney soft little lover and

i'm a hundred miles per hour too far past the exit sign and i can't fucking breathe when i'm going down this fast isn't it perfect because i never even want to aren't you lost yet i am sharp skyline piercing daydream weekend clouds apart there are no curves on the road i'm tearing up for myself no shotgun for you baby this is me falling apart on the side of the street under a storm cloud

loud little girl suddenly so small because the universe is infinite and i'm just a city of angry broken things can you hear the windows shattering i always tell you i'll burn down my apartment one day do you ever remember the shit i say slow motion urban apocalypse is what quivering mirrors show i'm a goddamn movie scene when will the credits roll.

are you waiting too? is that why you want me to stay? you watched me throw my heart downtown little fucking gutter soul and i watched you run after it fish it out from my own rotten ribs and hand it back to me with that shy tangled up in mushy midnight memories when i kept you awake look on your face

you and your soft heartbeat hands for a horizon what do i even say i'm always trying to run away i wish i could slow down for you i wish i wish i wish i could be your little hometown girl with softer countryside eyes and freckles mapping all the secret quiet valleys we fall in love in you want to take me home, don't you? you're aching for a forever with me under soft silent sunlight there's no rush when we have true love right but there is there is THERE IS

i have to move or i'll disappear when i'm not angry i'm not alive i am neon you are candlelight i'm choking on glass shard misery earthquake heartbreak about to topple if you unbalance me IT'S SO LOUD IN MY HEAD all you hear is the laughter rippling out of me because trainwreck entertainment is all i know how to be

listen, boy. i love all the gentle nooks and crannies of your heart, how much you worry when i'm alone in the dark, but cities are only pretty when the light fades away, only irresistible from far away

stay where you are and maybe i'll stay

you know

i'm a little scared of

anchors; my wrists are not

for oceans to chain

to the very bottom of seabeds and

waiting graves

oh god please you know i can't stay

you make the tide in my veins

fall back into old sadness and lonely

drowning lungs i can't breathe

i want to run to shore and

farther still you don't care

and i'll fade away into mist don't you see

i can't love you like rain when i am

hurricane

it's just a little drizzle on my shoulders now

my hands are empty of yours and

i've never felt so light before

there you are -

side of the road; last month's heartbreak still on your face

hands in pockets and words shoved even deeper

i bring up love

and you bring up how forever was never ours

to claim, except i wanted us more than

the air in my lungs

(i tried to trade one for the other and you

still didn't know what to say)

the poetry i write is stinking

of greyscale rain your hands are the cold

of another girl's and this will be the part where i

walk away

here is a memory yet to be:

you;

heart spilling out of hands onto keyboard keys, tongue trapped in butterfly wings and ribcage cracks, head pounding, world stopping

( 'i couldn't get over you'

'i miss you'

'i'm still here' )

me;

knuckles red and empty chest, tired feet with no one to run to, swallow the loneliness go on there's no one watching, god these bleeding palms are scarring now, there is daytime sometimes but never when i need the light, i can't even fucking write

'what am i supposed to say?'

do you think of me

my name was all your fingers ever held

the thought of us spilling

out of dreams into things that will never be

you are distracted now

without me

you are a liar

if i asked you

who is it that your veins are singing for

who is it that gives you strength when weakness is seeping out of the cracks between our hands

who is it that knows your heart: the quiet little drumbeat when you are broken; the rush the rapids the waterfall when we closed our eyes and imagined a little closer

?

the truth is caught in your throat, i can hear you

choking on the things that you should say - that's okay

here is your heart back

do what you will

and i will be honest for the both of us

i need a little harder than this forget the lips i'm all teeth abrasive misery this isn't lust THIS IS war you think i'm so hot sweet little volcano in your arms now that you're gone i'm burning up all huntress on the prowl my claws are aching to drag your carcass back to my heart but i loved you once did i not?

i need the sparks not the light you're lucky you're the one that got away

i wear the loneliness like an

old sweater now,

telling myself that winters are

always this cold

with or without

you to hold

you are desperate to become

the stranger you used to be

except i know your

heart better than i know my own

i will paint you

the insides of your soul

tell me where

the strokes are not soft enough

tell me where the colors

are brighter than you are used to

tell me where you see

yourself

do you know who you are?

he never trusted the universe. he didn't believe in the things he couldn't see - the words that fell out of our hands like histories written long before all of this; tug of war and how heartstrings were tangled for us; just old thread and new heartbeats

and he planted faith in me, quiet little hope blooming in the light of dawn cracking across the horizon i couldn't share. i wanted to keep these little things, this destiny. on the nights i wasn't breaking, i was praying. i wanted to share my fate (or is it faith?) with you.

you speak of forever like it's something we create, i tell you there are forces beyond just me and you. you look at me like i am the happiness waiting ahead of you and you are so afraid because there is nothing in our hands, you say there is nothing to hold onto. i say there is us and there is god

or i would have said so if you hadn't let me go

it's not raining so much

i dreamt of you and i am awake

and i am whole

i traded my art for a little breath in my lungs

i can't write anymore

but i can breathe just fine