#euws

[gospelburnout]

i told you it all would fade away,

but a shock is still a shock is still a shock.

you said the butterflies would leave someday,

blood and fire in my chest yet to lock.

can a metaphor ever truly air

the tossing and the turning of my heart-

you are made of wondrous blinding glare,

you are a hundred thousand works of art.

we said the honeymoon phase wouldn't last,

we said we'd close up the firework show,

but maybe we just can't bottle the blast.

maybe this is how love's supposed to go.

if love explodes and fades out like a star;

if we're not love, i still love what we are.

[gospelburnout]

the sky was red, like the sunset, and like it had been for 10 hours, now

clouds laid in strips across it like a pattern, or, more aptly, like someone had dragged their claws across it

i sat and gawked: terrified, enthralled, excited

you stood and watched: holding my hand, and nothing else really mattered

"i told you so"

i gave you your 20 dollars. right after that, unbeknownst to us, paper money lost all value

then we set off in your car

[gospelburnout]

i wasn’t meant to feel things.

i was meant to be preserved.

the boring and permeating smell of formaldehyde

kept my skin from the release of rot.

my emotions are not meant to decay,

they stagnate.

while roadkill and other dead things get release,

the release of air against meat, against blood,

of mouth on bones,

i only stay in my skin, untouched and suspended.

but you robbed my dissection preparation chamber

in the hopes of seeing something cool, something dead,

and i fell in love with the feeling of air.

you made me bleed, made my skin crack,

you made gore stir inside me as nature picked up speed,

you watched my face fall away and saw my skull

and you said i was so gross, and you sat there.

and i fell in love with the dribble of blood,

it leaked from my cheeks when you made me blush.

my veins and proof of death and rotting, rotting organs

flashed by you within minutes, hours, days, weeks,

we were friends, you and a corpse.

my hand broke off in yours, you loved it.

i fell in love with the sky as it tinted red,

i fell in love with the pain as my bones dried, 

and according to you, you did, too.

i fell in love with the permanence of death and the promises and-

i was meant to feel things

i wasn’t meant to be trapped, so-

i fell in love with you.

[gospelburnout]

i dreamed that he hit me again last night

i thought about it all day

but i didn't tell anyone,

i couldn't be weak.

so i tell only when the moon can’t see me,

when i don't feel memories breathing down my neck

i fight with dreams when im awake,

dreams that threw a 9 year old boy into a cream colored fridge

covered in shattered magnets made in head start classrooms

dreams that knocked pieces of me astray that i still can’t pick up

and i don’t want to be afraid to sleep anymore

but i dreamt that my mother cried because of me when i was a child

and i don’t want to stay up for days anymore

but i don’t want to fall asleep

i wish i didn’t need to sleep, and i could pretend

that his apathy and depression don’t feel like personal failures

pretend i'd ever make him happy

i won’t reflect well on him as long as i live, as long as i dream,

but after i reflect, i won’t live for him anyway

maybe i am selfish

but i want to be happy

and i want to dream of cotton candy like i did before everything

[gospelburnout]

you reached a hand of solid ice into my aching, burning, stinging chest and ripped out the crystals that inhabited the cavity and shined for you

it hurt and it stunted the growth of the crystals inside me and my pitch black empty insides pledged to never grow them again because you broke me

a year after i left you the cave inside me felt safe enough to grow more crystals and they still all shone for you but i must be as undeserving as you say i am

because i dont want them to

[gospelburnout]

the heart pounding anxiety of fear and love are nearly the same.

i tally the points of each and can’t find a meaningful distinction in the moment,

physically so universal and similar, overactivity of the brain,

but inside, passed layers of everything, one is fixing what the other has broken.

one feels so immovable and static, suffocating and unable to get help;

the other is help, is safety, is everything the other is not with every heartbeat.

fear makes you think that it is all there is and will be, it is a part of the self,

but love, while still born of adrenaline, replaces bitter blood with sweet.

it will never be fear because i say it is not, and i say it is not because i am alive-

fear will never be love, either, and frozen parts of my heart are still hidden,

but now im not just trying to survive.

now my heart beats just a little different

[gospelburnout]

i lived with you again in my dreams last night,

and after all the saccharine things you fed into my phone

like frying it with honey sticks;

and after all the times i gave myself one more sugar high

a silent plea for everything to feel normal, please,

i lived with you again, in that dream, after it all.

i was still afraid of you.

[gospelburnout]

there is a tower somewhere in a field that is made out of stones and bricks and concrete and twigs and rope

there is a permanent weight pulling down down down that nobody can see

because there is a river right next to the tower and it sees its reflection and trembles and hurts

how can this frankenstein building made with nature murdered in the name of existence justify the space it fills

when across the river are trees taller and thicker and more luscious than it will ever be

more alive and breathing and better at being than it will ever be

don’t compare yourself to the tree of knowledge, it will only cast you into hell

but at least the injustice that grows in the cracks of me, that was planted and fed and watered by me, feels warmer down there