wishes from the undertow

I never claimed loving me would be easy.
(you begged me to make it fair–
I shoved a knife in the space between your ribs
and ate your breath to the rhythm of your surprise).

I always had this notion,
that you belonged not with me
but to me.
(that was our final undoing. that
act of possession over partnership).

I can still feel the slide of you lips
against my skin as I took your first kiss
(the world you were all to happy to part with),
the spark of your body as, years later,
I took your innocence, your convictions
(it was all too easy).

(you never quite gave up the hold on your heart).

I never wanted it to end this way.
(you made me your villian–
I took the shape of the words you left unsaid,
and in their absense became brighter than the force of your soul).

you spent years asking me to write
the final page,
gloss the finish you couldn’t
quite grasp.

(the beginnings that sprouted
from the pages I burned
are more beautiful than I
ever could’ve put to words).

—
my last gift to you.

Synaesthetic//Anesthetic

I was tired of scrambling around to find the good things. I was sick of trying. Tired of lying. Sick of watching the masquerade that played around me. Who was real and who was not? Tick, tock, I was running out of time. Out of energy. Out of will. Out of self.

I was burning to the ground. Falling as the sun crisped my wings. The blood was staining my hands. We all fell down.

I longed for the innocence of a child. The naivety. The imagination that could create worlds without having to sleep. I needed someone to light my candle. Replace the wick. I was going too fast, trapped in a box with no sound.

The ocean was crashing over my head. I was drowning. I couldn’t breathe. The walls were closing in. Wasn’t anyone there? Can anybody here me?

(Is this just another story?)

broken frames

Dear Heart,

I don’t want to wake up some distant morning from now, filled with regret and resentment. I don’t know if happiness is part of the equation, our equation, my equation. I don’t think there is room for both of us in this relationship. I won’t lay down my dreams for you, I can’t sacrifice my potential to help you fulfill yours. I would support you, uphold you; I would do everything I could to stand by you, everything but walking away from my own chances.

I’ll likely never be satisfied. I demand a lot from the world, from the people around me, and especially from myself. I set impossible standards, and I hold everyone accountable. One of the many reasons I don’t have many friends, I’m sure.

I know exactly now what I’d have to give up to make this relationship work, and I can’t make those sacrifices. The things I have to leave behind to achieve what I want are different from the things you to have to walk away from, and so we are walking in opposite directions. I have to do what is right for me, even if that means letting you go.

And maybe that’s the point: I prioritize my life above anything else. I value my dreams more than my relationships, I value my purpose more than the idea of stable and idealistic future. I have to do what is necessary for me, even if is does not fit into your scope of reality.

Please don’t ask me to apologize for that. Please just stop trying to make sense of this fairytale. Understand that we are fiction, believe that we have made the choice of where we stand with each other–it was never partners.

You wanted me infinite, so I chose the only part of me that can be. I chose my freedom.

-E

the wrong moments

i’m just waiting for you to tell me
all the ways love isn’t enough.
i don’t think i’d blame you.
after all, i was the one who ate the apple;
you were just the man that loved me
without knowing what love was.

so don’t.
see the fruit in my hand and remember
adam and eve. persephone and hades.
remember the ways that I betray you,
remember my fascination with the snake in the grass,
remember that I am just a girl with pomegranate lips
and I will continue to poison you.

we are the same constellation in the sky,
but i am just a nebula and you are still
living, breathing, existing; you are
light entering my eyes–

and though
we exist within the same sphere,
we are already a billion light years
and a whole galaxy apart.

The Spaces Between Our Lives

Why does the beginning always feel like the end?

every breath you take is just foreshadowing the moment your lungs cease.

every beat of your heart is a beat closer to slowing.

every word from your mouth might be the last to touch your lips.

when you touch my skin I feel like a dying star, moments away from supernova.

when you enter my bloodstream, I feel the way my pulse changes to accommodate you.

why does it feel like every time we’re ending, we’re just breaths away from the next heartbeat?

Is this freedom or anarchy?

It took me 7 years to get over you, and 30 seconds to realize I spent the last year lying to myself.

How many numbers will it take until you have multiplied over my entire life?

snapshots of a life

Act 1; Scene 1:
-Everything is awash in hazel and warmth. He keeps staring at you. Your heart shatters, tumbles, crashes into his open palm. He’s smiling, brighter than the sun. He grasps your hand–you fall.

Act 1; Scene 2:
-Your emotions are storming outside, lightning cracking the sky into pieces. Your breath keeps catching in your throat–he’s so close, more electric than the fire raining from the clouds. And his eyes, oh God, his eyes.
And then, his lips are pressed sinfully against yours. For a moment you understand; if this isn’t the Kingdom, you don’t know what is.

Interlude:
-When you wake, forever is a bitter taste, turned to ash in your mouth. His words, scrawled so perfectly, do little to dull the snap against your ribcage; that first real sting of heartbreak.

You survive in his absence, but you’d never mistake it for living.

(Act 1; Scene 3 [aka. the scene we don’t talk about]:
-The morning, when he officially asks you—you think your heart might break from the way it’s growing. That month, where his promise weighs against your soul, it’s the easiest month of your life. All it takes is one boy with right shade of blueblue eyes to destroy every forward step you’d taken).

—

Act 2; Scene 1:
-You’ve never felt hatred quite like this moment. Something akin to fire is blazing beneath your skin and when you look at him, everything flares.
The first time he kisses you, it’s pity. The second, a drunk mistake. You vow the third will be different.
You fall in love with him two months before it happens.

Act 2; Scene 2:
-He’s staring at you. After a week of silence, he’s just staring at you. You feel like you’re choking, you feel like you’re dying. You press a hand to the life beginning to pulsate beneath your skin, and you almost hate him for being the better man.

Act 2; Scene 3:
-It’s a slow strangle for the next 3 years; fighting, fucking, falling apart. You end almost exactly where you began, full of too much hate and too much love to look him the face when you break his heart.

—
Interlude:
You fall in love with him because you’re broken; you let him reciprocate because he’s married and safe. You sabotage it because it’s always easier to control the outcome. (but, goddamn, if some part of you didn’t think, for one second, he would choose you).

—
Act 3; Scene 1:
-You multiply in your own loneliness; nothing times nothing, numbness becoming more numbness.

You wake one morning covered in scars, inked and purposefully inflicted. And when you look in the mirror, all you see is what was taken from you.

All you see is your third act, your last chance.

You wake up one morning, you look in the mirror–you’re already dead.