I overthunk myself to death

Boys-

so many of us

 born from broken bones

 peeling back scabs        only to rise

 beyond graves, name long since chiseled out

  blood seeping off not so angel wings

reborn in "mutilation"

                   boys-

                      forged in dirt

                             eyebags darker every night

       and dying at the hands of "real men"

           held against pavement

             guts wrenching

                      tightly

                tearing themselves apart

Boys

  with alligator tears, soggy and caked in ashes

  draped in words unflattering, unfitting

coughing up excuses

             forgetting how to breathe

             scared to become their father

       Boy's 

            encased in cracked skin knuckles

             forgetting if they even are boys

my heart loves like a worn piano

rotted and sunken

I cannot lick the dust off of my teeth

I love you like a piano waits,

yearning

without you I am nothing

and yet somehow the dents look like

the grooves of your fingerprints

and the hollowness sounds more

like dissonance

and the notes echo a bit louder

for longer

and for always

Brittle my bone

and bitter my body

I wish I could say that about my love

I find myself yearning

to be known

against rose dusted cheeks I remain numb

maybe it's the lack of being

only nervous tissue

raw

and still somehow disconnected

but the want for crimson

flowing through me and against you

makes me feel like sin

the flesh wants the muscle as the muscle fondles bone

and even then I am never in control

and I still want

want you

but the malnourished

quivering

vessel

that you see

hopes to be everything you're wings touch

and everything my eyes call ethereal and god

I find myself staring at my hands

and feel the room echoing back at me

there was nothing

even as much as my blood needs flame to spittle and the world to feel real again

there was no god

and he was never me

and on the 7th day

like we love our books

then you are most certainly a coward

unsure of how one loves

and too scared of bruising skin to

touch the skin of the man that is yours

and always had been

and maybe I'd like to be the one to teach you that your skin stains the pages in oil anyways

dog ear me

I'll hide all the ways I want

to be loved

like citrus beneath my fingernails

I've dug farther into myself than anyone has

but I'll never answer when asked

find me beneath the

me everyone is content with

I'm easy to know

dig your fingernails in

to find a me a little sweeter, more intense

and flavorful beyond all the

vividness you'd already come to know

peel sentiment after sappy sentiment apart

and let it linger in the

grooves of your identity

and carry me with you anyways

tenderly pick me apart

I'm all the little things you imagined I hope

peice by peice

you'll know me

share me with your world

not too much is different

and have me wholey

like your hands fit perfectly around me

as if people were meant to

I am in your garden

my dear temptress

wishing you would

Kiss me

your lips bless mine

and burst Capillaries

(Mine)

suddenly taste of bittersweet

apple red

I cling to you

"push me off"

I'm begging

silently

yearning

touch me

I'd bite if it meant you would

hellfire

burning us blue and black and bitter

would make me feel

like I'm allowed to be upset at you

beyond collarbones

every cell in my body

far too ripe

betrays you

The person living in my phone is not me

i am not the glass shattered remains that linger in photographs

longer then they should

I am not him

but I'm supposed to be

and looking in mirrors is always tv static

watching myself survive

instead of being there to live it all

I am not alive

and again perhaps I find myself analyzing my feelings instead of

feeling them

I'm not living

no yet

maybe one day when I can take my shirt off

I will learn how to breathe

and bask in the sun

sleepy ridden and weightless

maybe when I lather my skin in manhood

I'll find contentedness in my barren naked body

and nevermore gracing curves concaving into my organs

leaving me one final time with myself

and the gardens that tread my body

Maybe then I can live for someone else

I peer into nothingness

reaching

for something that should be but isn't

your whole life

somewhere

image starts to form

into focus

details sharpen

I- seem to be standing

struggling to keep

little baby feet pattered against your face

and inking your tattoos

and maybe the initial you wanted me to claim as well

let your hands be untouched by the scarlet bitterness of the sun, seeping into your skin

curling it tightly into itself

and scritch scratch papyrus

prayers and sonnets digging holes in the cherry washed grooves

pull your skin apart every layer, like the chocolate of kings

and hold that savory iron ridden flavor beneath your tongue

let your hands be untouched by light, and no more built up and vulnerable to cancer than July nights

let your hands remain fleshy, held together not by stitching but bones and careless fat

let your fingertips remain soft and tender

never struck by metallic lust

unbenownst of my father

I am as many sorrys as necessary

I was always a poem not the poet

as black inked ball point pens are the only way I know how to articulate and understand my feelings

so many people tell me how emotionally intelligent I am

and how much I make them feel understood

all it is, is that I know how to read scribbles all too fresh

and I'm only ever regarded as such when people want to feel something tangible

I feel things in extremities

and you only come to understand that when you're stilling the flow of blood dribbling below your rib cage

and I have long since been opening scabs

to be held by someone

beyond bodies

beyond flesh

beyond sex

he admires the clouds

taking note of their shapes and formations

he quells his mind in the ocean

letting it consume him

he knows the name of every fish

and loves every living thing truly

and yet he calls me charming

just as if I was something so wonderous in his eyes