all that is left of me is your history

did you know I wasn’t dead when they laid me out? There was still a hum in my chest, half forgotten melody caught, bird behind bars, still echoing, soaring, almost like flying if it were not for his sword rooting me to the ground, butterfly pinned against a backdrop of cracked stone and settling dust I buried my heart long ago, bleeding it dry for my own my love my all or nothing and finally the rest of me followed he stood and left me with my heart beating against the bars of my ribcage, too weak for him to hear i had no words left; not that he could understand dying i breathed my last alone i had never been happier

it is not a happy ending; it's an ending and that in itself is a miracle, don't you know that happy endings are not the ones given to us but are earned, scraped raw and bloody with broken bones and open palms, shown tender care with fingernails bedded deep with dirt from the grave that became a garden, seen limping on crutches made of old regrets as you turn your face to the sun. It is not a happy ending; it is not forgiveness, it might not be happy ending but it's yours it's yours and thats all that matters

head is pounding like an offbeat drum beat, a wing beat a heart outrun by the others voices noises songs echo and crash against you waves on the beach and it might be enough it could be enough your hands are calloused and rough and maybe once they were soft. once.

you think the dirt might fill your lungs you think the guilt might choke you to (a) death ha as if death would be that kind a ghost is a wish, a mem ory, but no one wished for you you don't remember you don't remember the dirt fills your lungs, paints your teeth, rigor mortis forcing a mouth open and gaping soul for a soul, split in two, was there ever anything left of you? were you ever you at all?

they say you love too much, too loudly. your love spills out like a sunrise over this broken nation, crackles and burns at the edge of the world like a forest fire. you love too loudly, too brightly, and the world is destroyed, brittle, held together with plasters and honey. you love, and you love and you love, and you wonder why you are the only one that ever gets hurt you don't know how to love without burning you don't know how to love without screaming maybe if you loved quietly, they might love you back

hollow out my heart pick at the apple seeds until all you can taste is it's bitterness and cyanide, cover it in lemon juice until it no longer stings, no longer turns brown and rotting, re-cover it in flensed skin until it is green and empty and putrid in a world that was once mine, soured and spoiled until nothing beside remains of the ripe forbidden fruit i once shared with you and you alone