trace the late night shimmer bloom
this place in me carved out for you
my tears swallowed for pure devotion
gripped in breath of falling motion
whispered warmth; my tethered needs
i plead upon bruised hands and knees
fill my chest with sanctuary
retrace the prayers that set me free
bind my fingers to your will
pressed against my throat you spill

if we are bending against the light
how long will it take to embrace the break?
gather up the warmth as if it will never leave
hide out in dark until an apology leads

an endless chase of autistic urgency
to find meaning in everything
i found nothing but god in absence of
never finding god in a single living thing

my baptism was bent knees and puddles of piss
doused in tender affections of someone sweeter than heaven
evergreen aspirations deafening me
holding on too tight to the ever-temporary

i want to know with certainty
when certainty is a promise that will never keep
i want to forgive everything
in spite of phantom pains lingering

every body of water is capable of drowning
believe myself when i try to resist the pull
but, fuck, i need my fill
everything seems so quiet, turning under the current

i think i see too much of you in me
only now that you’re breathless and waiting
in the brooks between ill-postured trees

when your missing posters filled every neighbourhood
i learned to keep pure my hiding places
not for anyone but myself

relearned fear, relearned grief
stained pigment, adorned in bodily reminders
everything that rots can learn to grow again

kept on searching for anything left behind
kept rehearsing your words in short bursts
always expecting the endings to turn out differently

sometimes i wish i knew you so I could know myself better
a parasocial pipe dream always whirling in my head
for the best then, i’m glad i didn’t

took a part of me worth severing
a beauty bathed in; the transfeminine
a lesson, an experience of broken teeth
i hope you burned your fist on me

we’ve kept obituary talk to ourselves
grey evening cigarettes smouldering gazes
i see the breeze bruise your skin
not knowing if i should say a thing

let it be a gradual acceptance
like mourning an abuser who still meant something
picking flowers from their abandoned garden
to make some sense of instability

i try not to spill their names
as their ex lovers fuck me
i try not to promise anything
when it is all i want to do

left a keepsake in my stomach
like a letter-bomb without a fuse
soft tissue attachment issues
they will have to scalpel it out of me

i’ve decided against regret
it’s all space for sympathy pity now
some things simply cannot be changed
but at least i will not stay the same

i cover my body to escape
there is no stillness holding onto me
the mirage of static in my skull
pulsing through tunnel vision
shallow haze bathed in mercury
let go and sink into patience
syncopation like an unsteady heart rate

i used to dream of beautiful things
stalking gloom; relentless devil
in my ear, it whispers desperate
for all the things that cannot be what they are
layers of noise over empty spaces
doppelgängers chanting over me

i wonder what it meant for me
everything beyond knowing or control
living comfortably where it shouldn’t be
in memories that will not stay ignored
in gaps left by broken skin
the ease of colour slipping in

i am left before the slowdown
time-blind and lacking urgency
the drive to lay before sinking lights
pulled closer than what is deserving
and released before i earned my place
a repeated lie to keep my shadow safe

they’re always leaving
desensitised and sedate
letting the air out with laughter
it’s tired and it’s all that can be mustered
sometimes sorry but never really meaning it
the company we’re keeping to ourselves
exchanged like passing prayers
collecting days amongst routine

if it could stay the same
would we ever want to leave?
or would it be too much to take?
always out of time, out of sight
compartmentalise it all now
it will leave its mark in its own way
the lack of silence in everything
all too much given in pursuit of the momentary

we’re missing everything
watching memories decay in stop motion
i no longer see you like i used to see you
staring at each others faces like we stare at walls
i’m lying to myself, promising to no one else
drifting in between conversations
absent by the time they end
it hasn’t been the same but there’s nothing left to change

what cannot be ours, i’ve stolen for myself
threading pins through insect wings
it softens with distance, a lack of focus
sublimated into a love i would never wish upon another

if you felt it then, it’s haunting now
letters left loose under floorboards
better off collecting rain and rot
sentimental self harm waiting out a relapse

i know you better than neglect
craving like nicotine patience
a game of personality cadence
learning what tones to fear the most

how much sickness can be forgiven in you?
i can’t even begin to forgive it in myself
thoughts and prayers to fill the air
everything I do to stretch happiness and time away

always in admission, leading sirens in opposite directions
clouded judgement behind the steering wheel
it’s never made much sense
but will we ever learn to live different?

i’ve been wrong; succumbing to others
living inside the eyes of strangers
forgetting names outside periphery
trading charades for new addictions

one part of me grows resilient
as the rest of me grows distant
kept my eyes shut through every conversation
all to beg you to love someone different

i swallowed down the broken teeth
but kept the blood warm under tongue
left a quiet space for you to leave well enough alone
sharing bodies worn in stolen clothes

it’s unfair; the way i miss what was never there
better off the faultless victim
still drowning coins in fountains
diluting waters of responsibility’s rest

erase the taste from memory
it hurts less now because they fuck me different
i want to forgive until the guilt is shivering
but I will keep my silence until it’s all that’s missing

losing time to abandoned gardens
guilt is the pulse of shifting soil
sinking blindly with the roots and lead
a perpetual burial; hell upon our fingertips

in pursuit of dreaming apparitions
i have been shed; countless barren bodies
embracing decay to feign rebirth
gaunt limbs guiding repetition

an endlessly tiring turmoil
toiling hallowed ground to its death
lending breath to insatiable lungs
becoming inseparable from expectation

upon avarice our legacies perpetuated
denialism counting particles of ash
lining mausoleums with artefacts of animus
a heralding of cyclical disease

i have relinquished prayerful hands
shattered bone and broken tethers
our flesh is forfeit to regimen
so in love we plead our autonomy