serendipity

to think i desecrated the temple of my body and called it love. mostly, i wanted to be useful, which in turn meant i wanted to be wanted. these two things aren't mutually exclusive, but when you have a past of getting torn apart for love, things get lost in translation. i thought exchanging myself was the price of being seen, how did i get it so wrong? i'm unlearning some untruths that were stitched into my seams. we're trying to replace these threads with something gentler. we are calling the temple of my body a place of love instead.

She’s the girl that makes people worry – not too badly, just enough so that you’re wondering if she will ever breathe again when you’re sitting on the bathroom floor with her after a night out, wiping mascara from her cheeks and listening her tell you that she loves you and she’s sorry, she’s always goddamn sorry.

thinking of you, lights dim and eyes blurred. i can only reply to people on hinge when i have a joint in my hand. making small talk with strangers is hard when i’m actively thinking about you, but harder still when i go about my every day. washing the dishes is a sad affair when i’m not waiting for someone to tell me that they miss me. when i hop back on the dating apps at 3am like clockwork, it is because it is my only way of getting over you. texting back thank yous to compliments feels like i’m winning a war sometimes, like fuck you is being painted on the tombstone of us. can everyone on this godforsaken app see through me? hello, sexy. i’m not brand new. i’m wine-stained and ruined. i’m fine, thank you, how are you? i let someone swallow me whole already. i know you can’t touch me this far away but you see - i still have shrapnel from people who used to love me. i still have shrapnel from people who said they loved me.

you can't be a god without  giving something of yourself. i tried to warn you but my hands are knives trying to be birds, trying to be free. your hands are empty  revolvers, eager and begging me to teach you how to aim.  my love, i was asking for a rotten redemption in your lips. i thought letting myself be soft with you would prove that flesh was not the only  human part left of me. but i gave you your first kiss of power in my desperation.  i was trying to undo my mistakes, but you can't made deals with gods without a sacrifice. i didn't want to trade your clean hands for my black soul. godhood, like girlhood, is a damning thing.

boys born from a battlefield should have iron bones and an iron heart, but boys born from love have its own kind of magic humming inside. they want so many pieces of  you. they want a villain and a hero, and you just wanted to be a boy. you could've had riches but you just wanted peace. you're a puncture wound away from splitting, but kind is not the same as fragile. you have been sewing the seams of your own  wounds for far too long. when the dust settles, you are a ghost. many men made a fool of death, but you met him and  find something sad and lonely about his weary hands. boys born from a battlefield  chase their whole lives to silence  the restlessness, but boys born from love did what's asked of them and now want a softer ending.

i.

breaking myself down to pieces, trying to find a part of me that would be okay with the crumbs you could only give me. my love, i had to say no, and you know i did. you said it yourself, you wouldn't live with yourself if i gave up everything. i keep thinking, i've rebuilt myself from scratch so many times before, i've lived with entire sections of me chipped away and i could do it again.