there is only room for a bitter woman in this world. / if your words are too soft / if your hand is too forthcoming / you can only invite the worst of men into your body. / a burned down temple / a grieving apple tree in the midst of a winter, that is what you're bound to become. / men, they burn things down. / with their heavy breaths and even heavier hands, you feel tornados circle around you; words like lightning, flashes of death before your eyes. / yes, that is you on the floor / yes, that is you, your heart is no longer working and the only person you can depend on has his eyes rolled into the back of his head wondering how long it'll be before you die. / or for him to kill you. / something is wrong and you can't see it yet.

— OPEN YOUR EYES, DEAD GIRL [ alternatively titled a burned down temple ]

love is sticky like honey at midnight with jesus lingering on my breath to usher in another night of sinning. for the weak it tears at their skin, shreds of flesh, bloody, messy. the moans of our ancestors watching with lopsided smiles and a tsk / for shame, for approval / i doubt it's the latter but my mother says god is real so i breathe in, once, twice and agree to bend the light of faith in my own direction with unbecoming church pews. love is sticky like honey at midnight when the buzzing of bees is lax and i can't remember my own name. for the conscious it's a skid across rock bottom that leaves you restless at best it's accepting leftovers as a full course meals it's the smoke from abandoned cigarettes clouding my peripheral vision. the sighs of my parents with heads tilted ever so slightly to the right and a heavy nod / for decadence, for looming death / everything has become an omen and hymns can't save me this time.

— FOR THE WEAK, FOR THE CONSCIOUS ( alternatively titled at midnight )

morality is as fragile as mortality.

the idea that we can maintain a level of humanness all while striving for the glory of goodness is unbelievable, unthinkable, so obscure a thought that we might as well have eve pick the fruit one more time for another lesson in curiosity.

the only thing men own is our savagery and our habit of romanticising it.

the theory of us: humans, faith riddled slabs of meat with a chip on our shoulder because the world manages to fuck up some way, some how, are officially going out of style.

face it, we're all last season so grab your black eyeliner and paint on the dead girl walking persona.

the theory of us: humans, minty fresh breath to match the outward coolness that sneaks up when we inhale more than we should have, gap tooth smiles that represent white washed diversity we accidentally let slip out of pandora's jar, are in no position to pass judgement when the person we leave it up to seeps into the shadows in the midst of atlas' unexpected resign from duty.

the balance between good and evil has tilted out of my favour and now i am in this personal purgatory.

the theory of us: humans, hypocritical creatures of constant retry that leaves us sinking in a river of doubt where we truly don't see the end of the rainbow because we took too long trying to understand why it shines more than our aura, our inner glow that's supposed to soften the outside world not make more beautiful, don't know a thing about true beauty because of the quest to find something postmortem and bring it back to life with pretty words.

the monster under my bed quit last week, even he believes the one in my head is enough for the both of us.

the theory of us: humans, wishes of clear skin and a heart that can withstand a beating, will only ever to comprehend things in first person because to look outside of ourselves requires one thing we do not own.

i thank you, prometheus,

hopefully you'll forever dance in the fire you gifted us.

- PANDORA AND EVE'S FOLKSONG [ alternatively titled the theory of us ]

of men, of monsters that tuck themselves in our dreams then in our minds, of indecisiveness and breaths of frigid air, it is hard to know when not to pause and ultimately lose ourselves in time. slowed. stopped. ended.

i am fragile, i am something that when met with gravity and wood oak floors the best turn out will be to find me cracked and chipped, value decreasing as every movement pushes more air between the place hit.

i am glass.

do not let me fall.