heartache

I planted seeds outside our cardboard house
so when you came back to me
it’d look happier
than you feel. 
I want mountains to shake
when you fuck me
and the dew to drip onto our bodies
that the fall leaves don’t hide so well.
It’s as if
your voice can cause an earthquake
in the deepest part of my belly
before others know
you’ve even arrived.
Yet I carry the weight of our love
between two fingertips
so it can fly away at anytime
and return all the better.
For there’s no poem
like the one 
your lips lay on my ribcage.
Trembling,
I ask you to stay there,
to come home
and marry me beneath the flowers.
Let me kiss inside the creases
of your fears;
the air will do them good. 
We’ll plant them outside our cardboard house
so when you come back to me
you’ll feel
you’ll feel

free.

 

The Future is Uncertain

I took your Absolute Truth
and peeled it,
eating one slice at a time,
licking juices clean
from the countertop you built
just for me.
It’s difficult to survive
in a world
that says you shouldn’t exist
…except in hindsight.
Maybe I forgot my past
of a picturesque childhood
because being born
with half a heart
scarred me in ways unimagined
like the traumas
buried in my dreamscapes
that even therapy
didn’t unveil.
I shoved the very thought
of simply living
into a corner
of the room you never let me enter
since you tried to kill me
but died yourself
without a goodbye.
I can’t wash my hands enough
of the guilt and sin
I was raised to believe in
though it’s been proven
it’s not my fault–
you never confessed
to stealing my bright future
as if it were yours to take.
I carry the weight
of what was
because I can’t quite escape
and I can’t quite give up
painfully working towards home.

I’m my own role model, dammit.

do you remember when you said I couldn’t do it?
well, I sure showed you.
I left that life of living on the edge,
one step ahead,
of dying–
figuring out ways to breathe
with a razorblade
and sacrificing sleep for what I am “supposed to do.”
Sluggishly categorizing each trauma
before then and after
as if time can heal all
the heaviness of boots
soles walked through

do you remember that time you texted me a 1-800-DEPRESSION line?
and I poured Baileys and tears
into my morning coffee
instead of responding
because fuck you
for living that life of checkboxes
that limit
the possibilities
that lie outside the realm you know

do you remember that time you took credit for my happiness?
as if I didn’t lose skin and teeth
and my virginity
dragging my way up the hill
promising myself better
trying to succeed in sweet relief and rest
from living in survival mode
hoping for a fresh start
craving the inspiration to create
with what I already have,
and transform.