sword clash

i have been fighting for the longest time
enough wars to make your hearts break

                  [dawn and dusk
                        mother and father
                   sibling and child
                          ; the darkest of all crusades
                                 the most righteous of all jihad ]

   i would fight a thousand more
                         a thousand more

                                  if i could fall like a star
               or angel
                             (there isn't too much of a difference; both are so far away)

       into you
                        ; my home.
                  (heaven,
                                 jannah)

you will always be alone and then you will die

I breathe and live and want; they call me 'whore'. 'Prostitute'. 'Bitch'. But I've never gotten paid and I don't hate anyone for it. I get what I want, and that's more than most girls can say.

Your stupid trailer is freezing, or I am, and I'm hungry again. I'm not above begging you for something to fill me. It's been three days. Baby, your pity tastes disgusting, but beef jerky's all you've got, so I'll take whatever you let me take.

Whatever I want to take.

You're in a cage and there's the stink of testosterone and blood and fear as you tear into other men like tissue paper. Like Picasso, you paint the walls and floors with red and linoleum and intestines before you sigh. I don't want to be here, anymore, I whisper, lost to the jubilant screams of your crowd, but you hear it anyway. Amber eyes rise to my green, suddenly shifting into my own, like you're saying me too or I'm gonna eat you alive.


I can be content with that.

Innocent. You want to keep me innocent, but I've got voices in my head telling me that I'm a sinner, an insult to God, to take what I want because it's mine, I'm no good, I'm better than anyone. And maybe, baby, it would shock you to your bones to hear what I've got in mind. I want to crawl into your skin and take you from the inside out, claim your heart with my teeth and grind you into the floor with my hips. I want to run my hands through your hair and bite you 'til you bleed (for me, again; this is getting repetitive, isn't it?). Have you dreamt about it? I hear you in the night, low voices and hitching breaths -- do you think about me?


Do you?


I am you and you are me, and nobody is a victim here.



(There's this line to this poem, and it's the one that thrums under my skin whenever I'm with you--)


I'm in a car with a beautiful boy and I feel sick to my bones as they creak against my skin because he's not you, and I want you. When did I get into this? When did you love redheads and propriety and tameness and when did I let you? When did you push me into ice-cold arms and ice-cold smiles and expectant hands?

Is it because I can't tell you I break everything I touch? They shatter and wither and die in front of me, you know, and there's nothing I can do about it because I can't let go. Not ever. Because you can't just sink your claws into someone and wait for them to shove you off, not when everything hurts more on the way out than in. Not when I want your claws and your everything, to compress it with the depth of your voice and the heat of your naked skin and swallow it so it's mine. So I'm happy -- so what? There is no excuse for this.
    (--you wanted to be in love and he happened to get in the way or--)



The road to happiness is the most misleading thing, the cruelest kind of ideal because it makes you put up with so much shit, baby, all for the sake of happiness. Happiness, they all tell me, like it's some kind of state and not a thousand moments strung together, not the high you run and reach for in life, not little presents from life to you. As though it's just another goal, another thing on your to-do list as you sit there in a pinstripe suit and briefcase and affairs with a secretary.


You make me happy, whatever that means. For what it's worth.
(--a man takes his sadness down to the river and throws it in the river but then he's still left with the river or was it--)

But you're always angry, you keep trapping these tornadoes under your flesh and it's not good for you, baby, to keep her from all these disasters. Sometimes, two people fall in love and it's tragic, it is, but sometimes, two people don't love enough and that's even worse. You've got tornadoes for her, hurricanes, blizzards and a dry, dry desert but she's a city of angels and sky-high towers and I'm gasoline and messed up wind patterns and the sun. You blame me and I take it, because you make me happy and I grew up in Kansas and I'm still stupid enough to believe in yellow-brick roads and evil, redheaded witches and a happy ending.



We're a terrifying, dysfunctional tricycle and I would have it any other way than this. Please.


And we're standing on the edge of a cliff, and we've both got choices to make, baby. But not really, right? I'd move mountains and cross oceans for you, but you'd die for me (and that's the worst part, it is, it is; it's not romantic like in the fairytales, having someone's life in your palm like that).

I am standing on the edge of a cliff and you're by my side, lingering in the peripheries, lingering in the darkness, until I kiss you, isn't it? I kiss you, mouth open and warm, and slide my hands across your chest, your back, and it's supposed to fix everything, isn't it? A kiss is supposed to wake you up, isn't it?


Isn't it?
   (--love, too, will ruin us.)

lemonade

and it's just a glass of water

you're staring into

and you're the cup's

half-full

kind of girl

and the water tastes

a lot more bitter than it should

it's the corners of his smile

that reach out like chains

to wrap around your ankles

and p u l l you in

and you're drowning in it

drowning in your reflection

soaking up the reflected light through your pores

you drink it in

the condensing beads of self-hatred and loathing

running d

                o

                     w

                                                         n the side of your glass

and you're caught in this m    z    of thought

                         a    e 

itunes on repeat

                                     how did i miss this?

what's wrong with me?

                                                   what did i fuck up this time?

and maybe, maybe a part of you is asking

what did i do right?

what did i do so perfectly that it managed to push you to this?

[and maybe a part of you thinks

that this is all you'll ever deserve

-- it's not.]

a lone droplet

sends a thousand ripples across

the inertial waters

and it's stained your cheeks

and let's not kid ourselves, here.

you've never been

a

glass

half

full

kind of girl,

and maybe,

maybe

that's just fine.

for thedreamer

i love you, always, and be strong.

i apologize for nothing.

x

"I mean, look at her! Her chest is so huge, I feel tiny in comparison to just that."

"Yeah, you are kind of small, aren't you?"

"Is it enough?"

A hand reaches out to brush her breast and then, breathily;

"Yeah."

x

(we were so young, so naive. but you never stay like that; not for long.) 

"

    I still remember; warm brown eyes and soft gold scarves and hesitant wandering fingers.

    I told you I was lost and you said you couldn't find yourself - but we were never more lost than when we were with each other.

    I'm a coward, I'll freely admit that. You scared me, you know - terrified me. Your carefree - almost eager - attitude towards death. The ease that you patched yourself up after heartbreak. And your arrogance - arrogance that I once found ohso charming - that let you presume that I'd marry you one day and we'd have kids and I'd name the first two and you'd name the last two.

    But then, I saw it. It. The cruel, cold pleasure in your eyes as you threatened your own death; the uncaring tilt of your lips (I used to call them smiles but they're more like knives now, glinting in the light); the selfish, selfish fingers that only took and took and took.

    I'd like to tell you the truth, someday. Because...I did care about you, I did. And while I couldn't help but wish your toffee-eyes were sky-blue; that you were a bit shorter, a bit leaner - I know that you couldn't help but wish that my henna-eyes were just that bit lighter, that my hair was blonde(thenredandthenblack;whichiswhyyoustartedtalkingtomeagain) and my lips were thinner.

    Oh, yes, I used you. But you...you used me too.

"