There's just something about nothing

the hollowness feels like being complete;

like your mother never hit your sister,

or your boyfriend didn't pour insults down your throat lungs like cigarettes smoke,

or the bruises on your arms are from 

something other than an ER room at 2 in the morning

it will turn your lungs inside out,

and make you crave frailty,

ivory bones,

and skin like sheer silk

You'll find

a body looks less like a battlefield

when there are hipbones peeking out

It feels more like your own

when the hips with handprint branding

shrink

and if you don't eat enough

they'll call you a bird

and never know how true it is

here's the thing about this bird,

under the soundproof skin,

diet coke thighs

and withering organs

there's a bluebird soaring

and the less you eat

the higher she flies

Emptiness feels like courage

when there's nothing inside you but yourself

you can be dangerous

with collarbones like iridescent switchblades

and a stomach that's been eating itself for 3 days straight

if you can stand that

what can they do to you;

nothing 

I am sad

So sad

I. When the honey drips-

falling slowly bit by bit

deliriously like a song off my lips

Like it’s trying to exist

on more than just tongue tips

-by then, it’s too late

II. Nothing feels better than when I forgot-

No more screaming obscenities, heartfelt obscurities that echo

Like cries for help in an empty parking lot

Words in the deep dark depths of a gunshot

Like these heartbeats are solely an afterthought

-that’s when I feel only hate

III. I am purely a clone-

The sickness that kissed my skin is growing alone

Yet still blooming in crossbows

Sunflowers grasping from hipbones

The wisteria howling postponed

for I have but one message to loan

-I may look like eden, but there is no god nor gate

IV. My smile is morphine, one hit and your mine-

you’re told I’m enthralling, I’ll make you blind

my presence non-threatening, for I’m much too kind

you can’t help but kill the scream in my throat, sigh

touch my cheek and whine

-“it’s your fault I’m addicted darling, you’re jailbait”

V. So to answer your question-

Every inch of my insides is sending a message

“Run, Run, Run from the mention

Stand on the edge and jump to heaven

Weave the blade in your skin as a lesson

Grasp the thread sewn into the pit of your stomach and experience its rejection”

-so my answer dear friend is a dismissal

And a reminder not to ask again of my fate

There are sunflowers growing out of my aorta

Seeds bleeding into my lungs

Where skin breaks open poppies sprout up

I am my own garden

Oak trees grow from my scalp

And hummingbirds fly from my ears

It's beautiful and awe inspiring

But I can't live with all this life coming from my skin

The budding flowers in my lungs are suffocating

And my heart doesn't pump quite right

My hair is jagged and knotted around tree stumps

And I cannot hear anything but hummingbird wings

This garden is swallowing me

And I don't know what will be left of my soul

When the flowers take root 

It feels like my ribs are shaking 

there seems to be an earthquake in my lungs 

and the flowers I took so long to grow there 

are being tossed around and thrown into my blood stream

Sunflower petals are not made to fit into arteries

It feels like my brain is missing

like the only thing that sits atop my head 

is a heavy iron weight made of onyx scribbles

there is something so wrong up there it had to be crossed out

It feels like my lips are a burnt battleground

And my eyes are almost as hallow as the pit that lives in my abdomen 

My hands shake like hummingbird wings 

and my heart is a mangled Martyr cross atop a steep cyanide shrine

It feels like I don't have a smile

but a muzzle snarling 

I'm so rabid I don't even know what I'm howling at

but even the wolf knows when the danger about is real

It feels like my entire body is a grotesque collage of nightmares 

the only thing missing is the lanky dark figure who swallows me up at night

I don't know who dreamed me up but I was not made to stay idle

There are decomposing pieces of the people that I used to be that lie buried as chopped               up corpses around my feet

All around me is a graveyard of the people who I once loved

My world is crumbling and it feels like this is the only place on earth I'm safe

The only sound around me is the grey buzz in my ears

Like fruit flies waiting for this flesh to be another carcass in this burial ground

I don't know who's going to take my place but I already hate her

For the maggots in my eye sockets wouldn't be eating out my insides if I could have                 stayed just awhile longer

There is a feeling I cannot explain

It exists in the taste of poetry on my tongue

Or the sound soft voices harmonizing

It is the feeling of being in a quiet church

With stain glass windows pouring glass on me

It is the bite of lemon on my tongue and ice crunching in my teeth

Wind in my hair

It is a feeling of existing

It exists at 8:03 pm at the cross of martyrs as the sunsets

It exists at Ragle park on a bench in the grass

It exists in fairy lights and the smell of rain

The heavy touch inside my ribcage

It is the feeling that I get when I taste “I love you” on my lips

It is breathing and burning and soreness in my thighs

It is something more than metaphors can explain

It is painful and heavy and it hurts so much but I pray to god it never goes away

I love you so much

it's like a bullet to my head

Like standing on the highest floor of a sky scraper,

looking down,

and wanting to jump,

not just because I want to fly,

but also because I want to fall

I love you so much

it's like a hole in my stomach

You are my only nourishment

and when you kiss me

it's like breathing

I love you some much

Where my skin is raw and scabs break open

Flowers bleed out

I love you so much that the bruises on my skin look like art

and you tell me my body is a canvas

I love you so much

I'll tear out my lung 

just to plant you calla lilies in their place

because I know they're you're favorite

I love you so much

I'd cut my heart out and serve it to you

slicing it in bite sized pieces 

because I know all of me is too much to handle

I'd rip each rib off just to hear you say

"You're forgiven, princess, "

I don't even know what for

But you promise you wouldn't lie to me about something like this

I love you so much

And your love tastes like starlight

its so hot 

and I know these marks look like cigarette burns

But I promise they're only comets

And you always say, something need to be burned up

If you want a shooting star

at dusk the mossy streets sing

as the soft drizzle leaves sopping irises to tell their tale

they sew a tale, fast and burning, like the hum embedded in my heartbeat,

thumping as their wet eyes refract into an iron Taurus constellation

during the night I run

I run from this whispered story,

its told in the soft lit streets

in the stars

and worst

in the fairy lights which hang above my bed

its told in the burn of the bile rising in my throat

and terror every time I see freckles which look like stars on hunched shoulders and hands

hands that touch under the moonlight

these memories chase me like the bulls in Pamploma

their hooves beat like heavy steel against my ribs

and the only thought in my head is

“please stop”

but he wont listen

we met that night under hallowed star light

the cosmos flowing like a celestial river through the alluvial hymns and molten eternity

we took a leap at dusk,

exploring like Charon traveling in the river Styx in a golden timbered gondola which tunneled

through an orchestra of stars forged by heaven’s blacksmith,

conjoining as we do, twisting like snakes or tempered steel which has been baptized in fire

burning and distorting like smelted cosmos of Plexiglas

You whispered to me like the stars do,

mumbling the eternal melody, singing tales through thunder,

a story like that of Scheherazade

a hopeful ache like a stain glass halo illuminating Saturn

We joined like waves lapping at broken atoms

having finally finished following an amber string

which weaved through moonlit temples

still twisting on columns and fraying at the ancient maze to the alter

We found Elysium

through watercolor ballads

This rage I carry is heavy and raw

its battered and grotesque 

leaking blood like a picked at scab

the cause of it is murky and hidden 

but the feeling is clear

like a shrill scream 

its visceral and animalistic 

pawing at my temples 

snarling through the pure revulsion on my face 

it acts without mercy 

the predator can be suppressed but never controlled