I will never be everything you want,
the blend of lost and found.
I am soft edges
not a broad shoulder to collapse into.
I wish too much
and do too little.
I am half a meal and you will always leave empty.
I don’t have the world
or even a place for you to break down like I have.
You tell me I am beautiful.
I want to believe you
but I can’t when you keep looking the other way.
I know this does not mean you are dropping me,
the slippery fingers of a question mark girl,
just holding me the same way you hold your dreams
and I am the last person to hold that against you.
I would hold out for you
if I knew you didn’t want to hold someone else’s hand
so I bleed what I lack and I can’t stop bleeding.
I paint you in red and you still can’t find the colors we are.
You will make someone happier
than I have ever made you
and I hope it is easier than this.
I don’t give you a forever…
if I did it would be rocky
and I don’t want to be the reason you trip.
I hold you like a girl.
This is not everything you need.
My thoughts say
you had to try falling
for this whirlwind head,
for the halfhearted space I take up.
And I can’t help but think if things were different
you would be more in love.
I have a lot of regrets.
Some things I wish I had done
And others I wish I hadn’t.
My life is filled with what ifs
What if I didn’t say that?
What if I would have done this differently?
I constantly wonder what could be
If I had changed just one thing
Who would I be today?
Can one decision really alter a life?
If I had done things differently
Would I still be the girl you love?
I wish I could look back
On all the decisions that I’ve made
And say that I did what was right.
I have too many regrets.
I’ve made a lot of mistakes.
But you’re not one of them.
Everything I do with you is right.
And that scares me
Because what if it becomes wrong?
I’m afraid that I’ll make mistakes
That will hurt you.
Please don’t be another regret.
I’m not through trying to love you.
Don’t make me look too hard to find you.
I slice the horizon and I don’t need a miracle.
I hold myself closer when you’re around,
skin shaped like my own sanity
I’ve only started to notice in your eyes.
I watch the lights bleed out to these edges and
the sweet starts to taste like truth
as soon as it melts on my tongue.
I count silence the same way as the best words,
sometimes I forget about the swords in our pockets.
We might look like hell but we taste like heaven.
You undo me, I don’t want to be undone
I want to be stitched, I want to be here.
I want to be so here I fall through the ceiling.
I am trying not to hurt you with these knives I hold.
I have such horrible aim.
I am trying not to pull you off the track you laid.
I keep hallucinating the train coming.
I am trying not to take over your brain like a tumor.
I keep thinking about you until I’m stuck in your head.
I am trying not to cry as hard as I know you need to.
I am a river and I keep needing your skin like a drought.
I think the tears of this hunter
are as wet as the tears of the hunted,
and just as bitter.
I can sell sweet
but I have never been honey with this fast-paced flood,
words that can cut like tripping,
love that I can laugh with you
but it might just mean the blades are sharpening.
When I’m drowning in trusting you I am still holding knives.
This is the only thing that makes me a truth teller.
But when I look at you I turn pink with promises,
I only want to stay here four seasons of the year,
maybe more.
When I look at you I can only see
the countless hands that must have built this beautiful,
not the hammers I bring with me to cave it in,
please close my eyes for me
so I can know it again,
that my tools are not the kind that build.
Mouth open so I can spill my cracks into yours,
maybe here two wrongs make a right,
I hope you love to choke
because when I am living on the way you taste
that is all I can give you.
Breathe the scorch and all I can feel
is just how sharp these hands are.
I am trying not to hurt you with these knives I hold.
I have such horrible aim.
I will always be breaking, combusting,
breaking down and breaking through,
you know so well I would rather hurt with you.
You need to stop using those words,
always the sorry and the need,
I can’t take either when I can barely breathe.
I need to stay, I need to leave,
I need a list of things I shouldn’t do,
cut off oxygen and crashing cars,
losing and finding and hurting you.
Tomorrow I might not be able to reach,
carving history, scribble skin on skin,
stomach drop with what you choose, begin.
I will always be sighing, stumbling,
sighing lies and sighing truth,
when I’m cold and so unable to shake you.
But I will always be breaking, combusting,
breaking down and breaking through,
you know so well I would rather hurt with you.
There is not enough space in here for you.
I spill my sins into flames and floods instead of
into your hands where they belong,
on your lips like I want to.
I bury my sins on paper
so they can disintegrate,
but sometimes I would rather just
let all my thoughts turn to ashes
and start over over over
I don’t want them anymore.
I don’t let myself know you like you want me to
because I know I can’t ever know you like I want.
I want you to see
all the ways I can move when you’re not looking,
how this outlet does not have a ceiling
and it fills me with furious,
how this alone shovels out all the black in my head
and helps me be what I am with you,
how this overfeel keeps overflowing
and I’ve run out of space to build any more walls.
You say you are
broken
but I know, I am forever splintering,
I will not worry
as long as you know how to love.
Can you forgive
all these sad songs,
all the words tagged with your name?
Don’t waste your flowers on me
Can you forgive
all my worn-out secrets,
the things I threw like a hurricane?
Don’t waste your minutes like me
I worship a world
with no other fortunes,
stuck in the dark holding the same flint
I can’t let go of the perfect I see
I lie with you
or for you again,
all the not-enough nights that I’ve spent
Tangling your fate again with me
Please walk on water
like in all my dreams,
white lies that blind me till disaster
Soak up all the space I can’t see
Where do I touch
when I feel your lonely,
movements you forget hours after
Take up all the air I can’t breathe
Too high to come
down where you need me,
can you forgive when I’m in the wrong place?
Don’t waste your flowers on me
Too close to press
my shivers to yours,
can you forgive my negative space?
Don’t waste your minutes like me
Stealing glances, picking little fights
when you’re the only one I would never push down-
you are already too sunk with your ship,
rooted in lonely chaos.
We are tangled because they told us to
and when I reach past you
I could swear you almost take my hand,
there is no shame in this
unless I want there to be.
Scribbling secrets, spring midnights
when we paint the sky open with laughter…
we will regret breaking dawn
but we can never regret as much as we will miss.
And when you’re across the table
I could wake the whole world
with these deafening glances.
I want to tell you how you talk,
how it builds this sun around us and
I see it like a comfort that could break any moment
but somehow you still manage to hold it up.
I want to tell you how you sound,
tired and happier than you’ve ever been in daylight,
like no matter how late it gets you’d rather be here,
like you’ll never hold it over me if I trip.
I want to tell you how you sound,
hands that can’t hold you up at this hour,
a voice stumbling over itself,
a voice tired and messy but I love it that way.
I want to tell you how you look,
not even trying to stay awake,
you don’t need to when these bonds are unspoken and
so I keep glancing over at you,
seconds then minutes at a time,
hoping you might catch me,
wishing you won’t.
I want to tell you how you love,
tired and you’re still better at human than me,
if we are marbles or minutes or just what someone needs
you give so so so much more than you take.
I am only here for your eyes.
I can only feel in your head.
I am not comfortable enough in this skin yet,
let me try on yours.
Let me love you like I should love myself after this many years,
pull me back when I can’t stop wanting,
hold me in a death grip when I can’t choose
so I don’t have to walk either way.
Give me a lens to see arrows like armor,
they can’t pin me to walls just with glances anymore.
Let me see fireworks here, a home,
stop me from
holding myself in hellfire
and dropping heaven at your feet.