When is a monster, 
A jagged, broken thing, 
Not a monster?
A taunt.
You could break the beast.

She sinks into his sheets,
Waiting.
The bed smells like a long day’s work.

Wavering in the doorway,
He knows iron and marble,
Hears no breath but the bellows,
His voice a lantern, searching in a mine.

She’s never seen anything like him.
Her thunderous heart rolls under whitest dress.
When is a monster
Not a monster?

Soot smudges cheeks,
calloused fingers cradle sea-soft swells,
Her skin flushes molten gold.
And
He trembles,
A bent-winged sparrow.

Her darling mountain man,  
Deep doe eyes,  
Taut muscle beneath burnished skin.
When is a monster
Not a monster?
She hasn’t left his bed since.

She is no toy trophy
Abandoned on a pedestal.
A new language of anvil and steel,
Her hair sheared short,
Pliant arms now hard and lean.
Her laughter rings like wedding bells,
The sweetest echo.

Stay. Simple. Stay here.
Maybe she doesn’t want heaven.
No one will miss her.
No one remembers his name.
When is a monster
(Jagged-called-broken) 
Not a monster?

But together they weld,
Palm to palm, breast to breast,
Rooted and solid and whole.

I’d cut my soul into a million different pieces just to form a constellation to light your way home. I’d write love poems to the parts of yourself you can’t stand. I’d stand in the shadows of your heart and tell you I’m not afraid of your dark.

You love him, 
you do,
and here’s the miracle:
he loves you too.
You are allowed
to lick off the colour from his lips
to listen to the hymns in his pulse
to bask in the sunlight of his voice

You are allowed 
to have him.

You love each other,
you do,
and here’s the tragedy:
it’s not enough.
You are allowed
to watch the sun swallow him whole and burn him up
to stain your fingers to the bone holding him together
to count the constellations in his eyes as they blink out

You are not allowed
to keep him.

in the heavy heat of my midnight shower
i can feel the bones of my skull,
my fingers against my cheekbones.
i have been growing softness there lately
but, palm to jaw, i can feel my bones.
–
when i lay me down to sleep
i can feel my hips spreading softly. 
i will call it cushion, call it mine,
call it insurance against bad winters.
my fingers are short, stubby, 
my nails trimmed to the quick, 
and i will drag them soft across my waist, 
my thighs, flesh that gives and gives. 
i want always to have flesh that gives.
–
i will call this a seal’s smooth slick blubber. 
i will dream of cold waters, green,
and all the life that eddies in the below. 
this is my seal skin, carried seven years
and never given, never hidden, never lost.
i will not burn my self for lamp oil
just because you have not learned 
how to sleep without a nightlight. 
–
there are scarier things in the dark
than the ghosts of who you thought i should be
or the nothingness you wanted me to carry on my ribs. 
the scariest thing is that i believed you, once.
the scariest thing is that i don’t, anymore. 
–
i put whole milk in my coffee this morning.
i ate breakfast.
i will survive the winter. 

the first time i held your heart 
in my cupped hands
everything, even the trees
even the sea
whispered to be gentle.soft, soft, slow.
and i was, i was, i still am.
you are the only garden
i tend to so patiently.
the only unwitting earth 
to my revering moon.

you’re in love with a boy
who is a prayer on your lips
with no god to go to.

he’s bleeding sunlight and
you’re trying to patch up
the holes in his heart
with trembling fingers
and the blood keeps
spilling.

you’re in love with him,
here’s the best part:
he loves you more
than his own life.

he’s golden as they come
but he’s bleeding out.
one day, someone will
strike a match on him

and he’ll explode.

so, here’s the worst part:
he loves you so much
more than his own life.

when i say that i miss you, i mean that i can barely put on foot in front of the other because my heart and head and soul are heavy and nothing feels right and i am simply a ghost wrapped in a body that feels both too tight and too loose and what i really want to do is lay down and scream until i am coughing up blood like you were as you lay dying

when i say that i am angry, i mean that i never really understood other humans but you did and you were always too good, too kind and you were beloved by all who only tolerated me and yet you are the one lying in your grave far too young and i am still here fighting until i can finally lie down beside you but until then i will be furious and i will never feel warmth again

when i say that i feel lost, i mean that home always used to be in your hands but now those hands are cold and dead and where am i supposed to rest my head now that you are gone because i am looking at the stars and i am asking why but no one is answering me and i am alone in this and oh god why did they take you from me

when i say that i want to die, i mean that i refuse to spend and more of my life crying and holding my ribs so that i don’t fall apart because there is a space shaped like you beside me in our bed but it is empty and who else is going to hold me and know me like you did and i will never be able to breathe right again if i spend all my life trying to hold myself together

when i say that i am tired, i mean that if i lay down and closed my eyes i sometimes fear that they will never open again before i quickly remember that there is nothing left to open my eyes to and maybe it really would just be better and easier just to sleep forever because at least when i am sleeping i can hold you and breathe you in and while it may only be a dream i don’t mind because i would rather have you than live another second without you

when i say that i am grieving, i mean that part of me was buried with you