Beauty With Claws

your soul is divided
into six thousand butterflies
i would tear all twelve thousand wings
from their bodies
to save you the pain of watching them die
one at a time
the pain of looking into your eyes
and finding them a little bit dimmer each time
painted in bleak shades of orange and black and pink
slowly melting from you
running into one another like paint
making you void and ugly

last night’s dress still wet and hanging in the shower,
i will be your second hand smoke
i can see your veins like rose petals
under artificial light
the scarlet lampshade stretches over me
like that white sheet
of a hospital gurney
that conforms itself to the horrified faces of the dead
the lucky ones

feel my face again
trace the bitter rind of my scars
like volcanic cracks in the earth of tomorrow
flowers will never grow from these cracks again
hair damp with nightmares
i pretend my teddy bear
is a ball of light
i can hold
that will never go out
even when hope is comatose
and i can’t reach

for what exactly
i don’t know
for something
anything
that is as bottomless as grief
but that
can make me smile
again

that can make me not have to pretend
when she comes crawling into my arms
arms salty

she needs me

she is so torn sometimes
that i cannot mend her
i can’t press my mouth against her tears
and make her forget they exist
convince her that they’re raindrops
i don’t have the strength
anymore
i tie myself to her shadow spine
with an old hair ribbon
so i can float sadly alongside her
and sing songs
of better days to come
even if i don’t believe
if i don’t believe in anything anymore

except her

how her flaws catch the light
like little fireflies of practicality
lighthouses for the lost and drowning
i am lost and drowning
and i want to break her
so the rest of the world won’t
because at least i’d do it with love
in my veins
in my eyes
you fucking savages
you can’t have her
like daisies risen from holocaust ashes
she will be free
and

all i want to do
is fade
blend into the stripes on the walls
become a part of the ceiling
to surround your every fucking thing
to watch you dance
like a mechanical song bird
to dance like you sing and write
i want to be drawn all over you
a lovesick poem
an opera in italian where everyone worthy of love
dies in the end
the tragedy starting in your knees
and becoming all of you
the earthquake in your stomach
giving you puddles
soggy flesh
and heart break
that is gentle
the pain that carves god out of man flesh
your neck
bent in longing
for me

no
there is no breaking you
always

really
i am just scared
to lose you