May has daffodil eyes, tastes of spring water.

She is a spring tantrum. Hail ricochets off her

bones. Petals form a nest around her heart.

She swallows wisps of clouds, stains her fingers

with wild berries. Weaves poison ivy through her

hair. She never wants to be anything soft or

disposable. She has honeyed skin, vanilla mouth.

Sugar sweet girl. Broken glass wedged in between

fists. Holds her breath, drains the pink from her

cheeks. Turns herself blue. Says, I was never

built for spring. I am the skeletons in the closet.

The ghosts in the basement. I am the outcast,

dressed up like a pageantry.

1. with your hands like a prayer / and my body ready to split apart 

    beneath them / i confuse romance for hunger / and then lose my

    appetite / with my mouth stained red / these roses in my rib cage /

    caught beneath the skin / the thorns pricking every place that held

    your name / and i bleed blue / and there's a poem there / but it has

    sharp edges / so i draw my hand back / and i don't drown in it / and

    there's a bird nest outside my window again / but we're not speaking

    the same language anymore / and i survive the spring / and i bloom /

    with light and light and light

2. with your hands like a prayer / and my body like a confessional / time

    heals wounds / but i am still coughing up the petals

3. with your hands like a prayer / and my body sweeter than cherry juice

    / here's the truth / lightning doesn't strike the same place twice / and

    eventually your body learns to forgive / even if it still craves the after-

    shock

4. once / i said love tasted just like cherries

5. once / i said the birds sang your name

6. once / i said there was just honeysuckle

7. today / i walked right past the cherry display

and god said, your body

is eden. tend to it like eve. 

know the fruit that kills you

and eat it, drink its juice,

break the covenant. betray

your bones for the pain

so you can pray for healing.

herd sheep with one hand 

and with the other, strike

the shepherd. be extraordinarily

miserable, create your own

personal plague. crush

your jericho in your fist,

and it will be good.

When I think of that night

 I smell wet burning leaves

And what remained of your perfume 

Under rain and sweat 

Clinging to your skin

Like I was 

It's all that's left 

Hints

Of who we were 

Once 

When we could still laugh

Faint

And fading more with each recall

I've tried to save it all 

By putting you out of my mind

And writing our bodies 

Line for line 

On crumpled notes

That I've stuffed so deep into 

The folds of this coat 

In hopes that I'll shed it for a new season 

But you're there

Faint 

In the summer when I'm bare 

I know it'll be easy to not think of the leaves 

Or when they'll fall 

Or that I'll have to gather them all 

But it will be brisk 

And I'll need this coat 

And I'll burn those leaves 

On a wet autumn evening 

Travel on, travel on,

away from all

the paths you've gone.

Travel on, on your way,

You can't stay, you can't stay.

Every road you've traveled on,

made you who you are right now.

Every question, every doubt,

Brought you where you are somehow.

Travel on, travel on,

away from all 

the paths you've gone.

Travel on, on your way,

You can't stay, you can't stay.

Moving on, straight ahead,

To a place you'll make your own.

In your way, unafraid, 

having faith, you'll make your home.

Travel on, travel on,

away from all

the paths you've gone.

Travel on, on your way,

You can't stay, you can't stay.

All the friends, you've met before,

You hold them all within your heart.

Leave your worries and regrets,

And embrace a brand new start.

Travel on, travel on,

away from all

the paths you've gone.

Travel on, on your way,

You can't stay, you can't stay.

I remember good-old days gone by when life was stable

and life was short,

and all I had to fear was doing lines off girls I used to know,

shooting their fears and insecurities into my veins,

each personality a new drug I'd never tried,

each smokey inhale a new moan I'd yet to capture.

I remember when I said I'd found the blades on a sidewalk someday,

as if making off like that was any better than stealing from a classroom,

as if passing my habits up as habitual was any better than the truth.

I was addicted.

Not to getting high and not to collecting names;

I was addicted to destruction,

addicted to every time a new "me" dissolved

in place of an old;

there WAS no "me" by the time the weed kicked in.

I was addicted to forgetting,

to scrubbing off names and personalities from my skin like bad bath salts.

I'd dabbed and blazed with the best of them,

turning my insides to ashy tombs,

turning my lungs to the entranceway to a psychological cemetery I could never escape from.

I burned.

I sank.

I drowned.

Miles of heroin oceans kept me under like waves on a riverbank,

reminding me of days I should have drowned -

I should've jumped -

I should've died,

if only to spare you the pain of handling relapses spent sobbing under bedroom pillows.

Our pillow-talk consisted of you begging me not to do it,

and stupid me couldn't tell the difference between "no" and "yes"

and I sank and I sank and I -

Lived.

But it wasn't quite living.

My brain was a shell no snail wanted solace in;

Even shellfish knew better than to scavenge in my ocular caves.

There was nothing left for them,

just snowy remains of a past I once had but now misplaced.

All the pearls were glass shards in disguise and I shattered

under their weight.

I scrambled for driftwood in a stoney haze,

all the while forgetting what it felt like to say my own name.

Also available on my writing tumblr