Sometimes,
I feel like ripping apart my skin,
and searching for a reason for why
I feel this empty.
Maybe my veins are tangled, 
or something is lodged 
in my ribcage.
Because it feels like
something inside of me is 
missing or broken.

Sigh your name into my mouth,
and I will breathe you in,
so your words can make a home
at the bottom of my lungs,
escaping only on the nights
when I feel the loneliest.

I envy the night
that embraces you with its 
stillness, and caresses your eyelids,
sending you to a cloud filled dream.
You always look best when you sleep,
your eyelashes fluttering,
and your lips parted.
I am tired of wrapping up my bones
in these cold sheets,
because i would rather be
wrapping myself up in you.

You tore through the walls of my heart
like a tornado, destroying everything in its path;
Leaving my limbs cut up,
and my bones bruised.
And you didn’t even return
to clean up the mess you created.

You are magnificent
in the same way the 
violent cerulean waves are
when they kiss the shore;
Always coming back,
crashing harder each time
as if the pull could show 
all of the tiny cells in the sand
how much it adores them.

The worst nights were the ones spent
lying on cold and empty mattresses,
thinking about you and how
desperately I wanted to be 
underneath your bones
and explain how awfully sorry I am
for not being there
when you needed me the most.

All I ever wanted was to show you 
how much I love you on nights like this ,
where we’d lie wide awake on top of an
overused mattress and talk about all
of the empty spaces between when we were born
up to the day that we met each other,
wondering what we were thinking
ever being in the arms of another.

I never believed in heaven,
or luck
or even myself,
until I woke up to the creases 
of your arms
slung over my rib cage
at 8 in the morning.
And watched your eyelashes
as they fluttered in the light
of the sunrise slipping
through your tiny window,
and thought to myself,
That if your arms could be any place,
they would be heaven,
and that I am the luckiest person
in the world.

You are the dark, immaculate night sky
on a chilly summer night.
With bare toes against the grass,
and my spine looking towards the sky,
I will always return to nights like these,
where I can remember you.

no amount of
crimson rivers down
my thighs
or
cigarettes between 
my lips
can fill this void
as big as a canyon 
that dwells beneath
my ribs.