❛ || BARE YOUR FANGS

You tell yourself that you’re not lonely, you tell yourself that you’re just fine and yet, You find yourself clinging to the legs of a kitchen table like a child, hiding beneath a tablecloth like you once did in the folds of your mother’s red dress You find yourself trying to adjust the arms of your chair, trying to move them this way and that but they can never hug you tight enough You find yourself falling apart in the hands of a clock at midnight but these hands keep moving and you can never catch up You find yourself on your knees at the mouth of a river, gulping handfuls of dirty water as if this is your oasis and you cannot stop drinking You tell yourself that you’re not lonely and yet, and yet

I’m a wolf when it comes to the heart, my howl knows no boundaries.  I’m either falling for love, or plucking it from my bones.

If I relaxed my body now, I’d fall apart. I’ve always lived like this, and it’s the only way I know how to go on living. If I relaxed for a second, I’d never find my way back. I’d go to pieces, and the pieces would be blown away.

we are wretched and holy and a religion unto ourselves. we are soaring cathedrals and carved stone temples and the trembling brilliance of a thousand forgotten deities. i am stained glass on a sunny day and you are the light that pours through my colors, the rays that illuminate the little seeds of darkness within me. you are flickering candles on a shadowed night and i am the flame that eats at you, melting you into being. we are ordinary. we are wicked. we are utterly sacred. the hushed despairing whispers of a sinner seeking absolution. the careless chants of the doubters and nonbelievers. the sweet holy water dripping from the palms of a priest. the blazing ritual fire for a god who has never shown himself. we are all of these earthly acts  and more. we are bright young gods yet humanity still clings to the ancients, so we watch and wait for the day they will ply us with fresh flowers clasp their hands in prayer and burn heady incense in our name. we wait. we worship. and what do we worship? well, we worship ourselves. we worship one another. you pray to me and i pray to you. you fall to your knees for me and i make myself anew for you you cry out for forgiveness  and i for transcendence. oh, what a beautiful pair we make devouring and divine  and so very desperate for each other.

He showed me one important thing that no one has ever been able to show me. Not that I’m beautiful, not that I’m smart, not that I’m sweet. None of that. He showed me something more important than any of those things. He showed me that I’m important, that there’s a reason I’m here. He made me feel like the world is lucky to have me. And I don’t know if anyone will ever make me feel that way again.

I am not a graceful person. I am not a Sunday morning or a Friday sunset. I am a Tuesday 2am, I am gunshots muffled by a few city blocks, I am a broken window during February. My bones crack on a nightly basis. I fall from elegance with a dull thud, and I apologize for my awkward sadness. I sometimes believe that I don’t belong around people, that I belong to all the leap days that didn’t happen. The way light and darkness mix under my skin has become a storm. You don’t see the lightning, but you hear the echoes.

People think strength is being able to stand up tall against anything and everything and not to be affected. But true strength is being hurt, kicked, shattered by anything and everything, and STILL being able to get up and stand up tall.

If I could rewrite our story, I’d erase our names from history, and carve them into stone instead. I’d rather us be forgotten together, than remembered apart.

I. WRATH, they call me. More white flame than red rage. More slow fire burn than volcano eruption. II. Sometimes, I think I’ve faded. I am not a feeling. I am to be harnessed, reigned in and bottled up. I am a thousand stallions charging over the sea - wait, I stand corrected. I was. III. People clench their fists now and call the surge in them by my name. I laugh at them. I spit in their faces. I am not a passing moment. I am not a fist fight in an alley and a beer the next day. I am not people punching walls. IV. What’s to become of me? I think I’m starting to forget myself.