The vinyl scratches as it plays

The song that we made our own

I look into your bloodshot eyes

I feel your every bone

We dance as if we had no choice

We dance the night away

We dance like the world is ending

Like this is our last day

I hold you as tight as I can

So the wind doesn't take you

I don't want you to do

I don't think I'll ever be through

Our skins become one

Our souls reunite

Our love grows stronger

The moon acts as the only light

You wash away my fear

You wash away my sin

But then you fade away

As I wake up again

Don't call me a sweetheart

That's not the person I see

I used to get abused by everyone

Then the bully me killed the nerd me

I grew up around dead bodies

With needles hanging out of their arms

I'm a walking firestorm

So sound the alarms

I almost died at birth

But somehow I survived it

Been called an underdog all my life

But I'm actually the Goliath

I am not the good guy you knew

I will break your heart and smile

You know me as a lover

But it's been awhile

There's probably still good in my heart

But who knows if I'll ever set it free

You're not allowed to be surprised

You don't know me

Darling

If you'd let me

I would rip my heart out

Wrap it in a bow

And give it to you

Honey

If you'd let me

I'd make a million deals

With a million devils

To get you what you want

Sweetie

If you'd let me

I'd do whatever evil deeds

Do whatever it took

Just to keep you safe

Sugar

If you'd let me

I'd be a part of your life

I'd make you happy

I'd do anything

Baby

You won't let me

I'll take another drink

Cry another tear

And sing the blues

he wants to go home but he is home

and it feels like the great value brand of reality.

where the table's dingy and the sky's sunless,

and the light bulb has a cataract

but the moths still beat their bodies at it.

he likes to imagine that it's snowing inside his room

while he sinks inside his bed, smoking enough cartons

to gas the roaches.

lie to himself that it's not just the clouds of moths

that seem to not die in the haze,

like sucking the tummy in but he's still chubby.

bags hang down her eyes

like upside down rainbows

doused in Florida's downpour,

and surrounded by unwiped tears blacked with mascara.

stuck windshield wipers downing

down a bottle of gin

but all the things she tries to drown

learned how to swim.

amongst the sea of filth, she floats,

an aimless buoy still tethered to that boy

she anchored,

who then sunk down with the bones of whales and boats -

too heavy and too angry.

her metal's all rusted because she's thinking too much she thinks,

while she heaves in too much air just to supply her thoughts.

every little crest and wave makes her creak and croak,

steeled umbilical cord bleeds over to her chassis,

and her life's summed down

to dying in some place where time's just a number.

now every morning's a mourning

and her bare feet barely wants to touch the ground

as she scarfs herself in his woolen sweater,

fibers’ scented with his skin.

I know we don't talk anymore.

You did tell me to move on

yet I failed to listen to you,

again.

I catch myself missing you often

but my heart belongs to me now.

I have in some ways moved on

and I still wish to talk at the end of the day.

I think you’re mine every now and then. I know you’re not, but there are brief moments when the night tricks me into being a firm believer of my own helplessly romantic conspiracy theories. There are conversations and laughs that carry clandestine meaning in our air. We might not know what that meaning is or where it came from, but we know it’s there, behind the toothy grins and wordy eye contact. Our air is heavy. Drunk or sober. The air that flows between the two of us sitting next to each other by the fire under the stars after midnight. The air that has to work constantly and stealthily when we’re all together to contort and disguise itself as innocent, “close friends” bullshit.

I could also just be crazy and lonesome. But most of me thinks you feel it too.

How can you be haunted

so deeply by one person that your bones feel bruised with their memory?

How can you spend

nearly a decade trying to forget

how they taste

how they feel

how they sound

how they laugh

and still find yourself

up to your throat in desire?

How can forgiveness and

forgetfulness toe the same line

and leave you wondering if

you’ve actually forgiven

them at all?

How can their words

still walk up your skin

like fingers, leaving

stardust in their wake?

How can you ever expect

to move on

let go

forget

exorcise

terminate

repair

your soul?

How.

How.

How?