sweet sorrow

You have my permission not to love me; I am a cathedral of deadbolts and I’d rather burn myself down than change the locks.

There is magic in decay. A dance to be done For the rotting.

there is nothing beautiful in the way he breaks in your arms when you hold him. how he’s twisted and turned every which way, only held together by the stitches that loop through his skin for the longest time, but you knew he wouldn’t last. he couldn’t. there is too much of him that they destroyed, and he feels a remarkable amount of hurt that only now decided to burst through the seams and rip through the fringes and you just know, because you feel it, too. no, there is nothing beautiful in how it’s all grotesquely put together like the nightmare you still remember, but how about we call it poetry, anyway?

Everyday since that bad thing happened, I’ve been practicing                   a spell: how to disappear from yourself, within yourself.

My heart is so tired.

My soul has been so fearful, so violent: forgive its brutality.

He kissed demons and slept with ghosts because living with the dead felt more like home.

He feels (he’s dead), he lives (he’s dead), he loves (he’s dead).

(HOW DID YOU SURVIVE?) they ask. how much did they have you bleed; how long did they make you suffer; how low did they force you down; how dark did they tint your dreams?      —until you had their blood glistening on your teeth;      —until your suffering paled in comparison to their own;      —until it was their throats pinned under your boot;      —until you learned to enjoy the sounds of screams.                                                           (I DIDN’T.) you reply.

i strip each day of its disguise             & remind myself that everything i have ever loved came richly draped                   in the rags of loss.

I wonder if I will ever find a language to speak of the things that haunt me the most.

— I’m in pain all the time. — Where? — Inside. I can’t explain it.