the rustling of leaves outside the door or is it men or is it in the kitchen, hiding in the dark or is it in the dark, hiding in my head a car door slams (it’s the getaway car), and a man with a big knife chooses me a pounding, a relentless and echoing beating thumping, thumping, thumping just under my bed it’s a heartbeat and it’s a heart under my bed under the floor it belongs to the man in the closet watching through a sliver of light watching me breathe listening to my heart pounding, beating, thumping my breathing is laboured because my lungs have shrunk they can’t hold enough air, my blood is drowning I gasp, and the men gasp, and the heart gasps and the car drives away and the leaves calm down and I close my eyes because I’m tired, and I’ll either sleep or die and either is fine.

if I stepped back and really looked at her, she wasn’t all that amazing. she had split ends and different coloured roots growing into her faded red hair, and her shirt had a little hole under the arm that I think she assumed no one could see (or maybe she just didn’t care, it could go either way). she liked to walk with her head down and did everything she could to avoid eye contact with people, usually resulting in an uneasy air of is-she-an-escaped-serial-killer-or-just-weird surrounding her. she made people uncomfortable a lot, something apparent to me and everyone else but not to her. but all I know for sure is that when she laughed so loud that people stared, or when she hummed children’s songs under her breath while she showered, or even when she wore mismatched sweats to a nice restaurant, I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to kiss her in the mornings, in the afternoons, in the middle of the night when I got up for water. and I don’t really know why, but I know that I loved her. her and all of her weird problems and split ends. and I was pretty damn sure that I would never stop.

my fingers always find you the way rivers flow toward the ocean eager and desperate for the sea’s love. you have tied a million strings to a million memories in my head and you tug on my thoughts like the moon on the waves I don’t need to dream to see all the stars laid out before me for I am in love with you.

When we get to the table, I slide in next to you and bunch up my coat under my feet (even though there is a perfectly vacant spot across from us with much more elbow room), and the waitress sighs a little bit before setting down the menus. She forces a slightly offset smile and turns curtly towards the kitchen where she will undoubtedly express her annoyance with couples like us to the only other server there at 2 a.m. on a Tuesday night. And I look down at your jostling leg vibrating both me and the table with its ferocity, and I look up at your bright forest eyes, and I am glad that I am close enough to see the matching freckles nestled in the tree rings around your pupils. Then you make a bad joke about the sign above the door just in front of us, and I laugh loudly enough to shake the air across the restaurant, and I am glad that I am seeing what you see. Our waitress, with a pen and a notebook and a grin all pulled simultaneously from her apron, sits down across from us and asks us something about pancakes, and I am feeling the warmth of your skin touching the warmth of mine in the inches between us and I am wondering if she always sits across from the person who gave her that shiny wedding ring.

I think I saw your soul once just a glimpse of it, resting in what I found a very strange place. I wasn’t expecting to find it that day I was expecting what you were expecting I think When you asked me to come over 2:30 in the morning And started unbuttoning my loose jeans And laying me down on the bed without a word I expected quick, quiet, the usual, But somewhere between recovering your dignity And losing mine, Something shifted in the stale air. I watched you turn your face towards me And the moon beams betrayed you then (You never touched me with the lights on) I saw your guilt in the lines on your face I saw your misery in the blood flushing your cheeks Your father never warned you of this kind of thing And then I saw, just for the smallest moment, terror I watched your soul seep through your pores. you couldn’t even hold it back. But I think your poor soul, so unaccustomed to the light, grew timid, And shrank back into the deep crevices of your shell. The cars flew by on the highway just outside your window And you couldn’t spend any more of your time human And you sent me away in the early morning Never to see you again.

I watch you throw fire onto a puddle of gasoline in the street, and the flames explode into magnificent life laughing and dancing in the dark so happy to be burning. you don’t know you do the same to me.

I’m not saying I want you dead, cause dead would be a blessing. I’m just saying that if you were under the knife I’d cut the power to the operating room and pray the scalpel slipped into your miserable god damn brain so then maybe you’d be tolerable

my house key is digging into my palm and making little ridges in my skin, and every time I unclench my fist a little bit the bitter smell of sweat and metal escapes into the air. I know that smell, that’s the smell just after that big fight when he falls asleep and I get drunk and I’m tripping up the front steps to my door, eyes wet and hands wet and keys gripped in a shaky grasp, and I fall inside and try to focus all of my energy on slowing down the pounding pulse in my head. it’s the smell of a large body pressing up against mine pressing up against my car with a voice too sober for comfort pressing up against my ear, and I can’t find my car key in my clammy fingers, and half my mind is praying for lightning and the other half is telling me to run. it’s two grown-ups fighting for who gets to fight me and my seven-year-old body first while I try to lock the door on the bathroom but the little bronze nob won’t turn in my little sweaty hands and I start to think about which arm I should put over my face and which one I should keep around my knees. I know that smell. and now I’m in your car and we’re outside my house and you’re asking me if I want you to come sleep on the couch or go home, and your leg is an inch from mine but you won’t let them touch, and you’re looking at me in all the right ways and saying all the right things. but my head is swimming with the scent of sweat and metal and I’m terrified that I’ve painted over an angel with the portrait of a devil.

I hope that fifth shot of tequila hits you as hard as my head hit the wall and I hope it’s one hit more than your liver can handle

Until my lungs fill up with earth Until my name has been forgotten and my hands have stopped trembling Until I have no more wounds because they’ve been scarred over with the roots of lilies Until I am not a pronoun anymore, and The millions of sentence you’ll say have no trace of my scent Until I cannot tell you anymore I will call you home.