I feel the warmth radiating from your body, hear the quiet rustling of your hair and taste the fragile sorrow filling the midnight air with coarse realism... 

The words never shuttering the deafening quiet, but my mind aflame with unspoken prayers.

Please, stay with me... 

Until a somber night intoxicates me with the lullaby of love and hope; until my mind gently sways into the world of peace. 

Please, hold me close... 

Don’t take away the safety of your arms, of your soft breath caressing my lips, at least until I fall asleep, until the gracious hues of dawn flood into the room, veiling the fractured lies... 

But your fingers slip away, leaving nothing but a crumbling cold as my mind submitts to the luscious darkness.

Living in a play-pretend dream, 

Cardboard sun gleaming over a never-ending masquerade of cackling shadows, 

I long for a tender embrace and a daring glance, 

Lost in the symphony of passion and sadness. 

I sway in the arms of a featureless stranger, 

engulfed by his whispers of promises, lies, and deceit, 

dreaming of eyes, 

glimmering emeralds of a forest in spring,

as he catches a fathomless tear escaping down my cheek. 

Blue piano, dreading and mourning,

erupts in a chaotic feverish dance, 

and faces merge,

crimson flames of myriads of masks caressing my skin,

dragging me into the abyss, 

until you break my fall, eyes of deep forest pools taking me in.. 

I feel a soft brush of your fingertips as you miss. 

Living in a play-pretend world, 

Cardboard moon casting flickering shadows over an empty stage, 

I quietly sit in the audience,

Lost in the make-believe cage...

I FEEL THE GHOST OF EVERY HAND THAT WAS EVER SWATTED AWAY.

I FEEL EVERY FINGER

THAT CRAWLED INSIDE ME

FEIGNING MISUNDERSTANDING.

I FEEL MYSELF FULL WITH WHAT I DID NOT ASK FOR.

FULL WITH DISAGREEMENT,

POURING OUT MY BLOODIED, RAW THROAT.

FULL WITH THE WORDS PINNING ME DOWN.

AND FULL WITH FIRE AT THE REALIZATION THAT THERE WAS TRUTH NAUGHT BEHIND THE WORDS.

FULL WITH FIRE, BRIMMING OVER.

FULL WITH FIRE, POOLING BETWEEN MY LEGS.

FLAMES LICKING MY THIGHS.

LASHING IN HOT BREATHS

AT EACH HAND THAT DARES

AFTER BEING SWATTED.

WHIPPING AND SCORCHING

THE CREEPING FINGER TIPS.

ENVELOPING ME FULL.

AND BURNING THE WORDS AWAY INTO CHARRED RUINS.

AND THE GHOSTS DO NOT LEAVE.

I CARRY THEM WITH ME.

BUT I NO LONGER CARRY THE BLAME.

THAT

BELONGS TO YOU.

AND YOU SPARKED AN INFERNO WHEN YOU TRIED TO PLACE IT INSIDE OF ME.

WELCOME TO YOUR PRIVATE BONFIRE.

TONIGHT

FOR ONCE,

WE WILL BURN

you

AT THE STAKE.

A man,

and a woman.

Both silently vowed

that the heat,

and the fire,

will never control

their desires

again.

But why is it

Everytime their

bodies touch,

when he feels

her lips and

soft, luscious body

clinging to him

while she sleeps,

his body burns

with need

and an ache

only she

can ease.

But why is it

Everytime

he looks at her

with his deep,

brown eyes,

and caresses

her face, her

curves,

and her

most intimate,

her body burns

with need

and an ache

only he

can ease.

They need to stop,

they need to hold back.

But everytime,

their lips and tongues

tangle, the

sweet scent of her

makes him dizzy,

and his power

makes her

submit

to the demands

only their

bodies

understand

Like fevered mates.

on their first time...

They suck the life

from each other,

everytime.

I’m not just not talking to you

I’m not talking to you

Or you

Or you

Or you either

I’m mostly just talking to me

Because you

And you

And you

And you too

Don’t deserve to have to carry my weight

Because neither you

Nor you

Nor you

Nor even you

Know how heavy an empty frame weighs

I saw your face today and barely recognized it.

And despite the lack of longing I felt at your features...

I still ached from the lingering feeling of your thumb running the length of my spine. Your voice still whispered and caught in the silence between my ears. My hands still hovered at your hips and the nape of your neck just before my fingers knit themselves into your hair. Your breath sat lead-heavy on my lips. And my teeth wished to scrape deep fissures across your collar bones.

And hello, have we met?

I hate my mind shouting over the noises and the pills I pour in to drown out the storms. I hate the echoes reverberating off the silence. The memories sliding around. Feathers, weightless, floating over one another. Cobwebs, heavy with death. I hate the paranoia gripping me tight. I hate the ever present voices leaving me restless and alone and awake. And the buzzing that seems to pulse from my veins to my heart, feeding it, rather than it feeding me. And I hate the crashing and spinning and the never-ending, aching bruising and careening longing that never seems to leak out of my faucet-like eyes and brittle, dried out bones.