sootandcinders

coffee smells like coming home but this time there is no home only cheap, styrofoam cups and a boy whose eyes do not remind me of a supernova or the tidal pull of the moon or wind chimes in september. They are not poetic; they are tiger-sharp, jagged razor wire promises inscribed on a storm-cloud sky: i will hurt you. i will destroy you. and then i will leave you. i tell him i am not afraid and for the first time i am not.

i have a monster inside my head frozen, shaking fingers claw against colder skin, seeking purchase, fingernails drawing blood. get out get out get out but my monster just laughs imagined breath puffing against the back of my neck, thick with the stench of death and madness. it whispers in a black-velvet voice, "we are one and the same, love. you cannot escape what you already are."

it is the third of october and i am building a castle for us out of feathers, bird bones, ocean waves and library book pages. anything to keep our feet from touching the ground. you are sin, he whispers and his fingers trail cold fire down my side, scorching flesh and freezing bone; brittle pieces of me shatter as they hit the stained linoleum floor. don't wake me from this nightmare. i whisper a nursery rhyme as i walk down our autumn path. kamikaze leaves fall, trailing fire as they throw themselves from the branches, down, down, to cold pavement below. your words echo in my mind a constant reminder that i am sin but you, you were ne

he wasn't a lost boy he was simply lost hands grappling with the darkness as he searched for the star that would take him to neverland

i learn his name after the funeral has passed, and the family retreats, packing their grief with them in paper wrapped boxes -- tucked away, but always within arms reach, all too easy to open again. i imagine they cried, and my mind refuses to stop picturing a coffin lowered into cold, december earth, covered with a blanket of snow and dirt and might-have-beens. every time i close my eyes i picture him lying against icy pavement and sparkling glass and i wonder what it's like to die alone. later, when all is over, i light a candle and watch as the orange glow curls itself in the hollows of my collarbones and try to compose words to turn tra

i spin apart, a galaxy ever expanding while stardust confessions trace icy paths down my spine -- the ghost of your fingertips against my skin lingers even after your memory fades

i. I cannot so I whisper my confessions to the secret spaces between my rib bones and fingers trace my wrists, feather-light, the rosary of scars I offer prayers for each stark, white line but I know even that cannot take me to heaven so I beg absolution and utter penitent sighs with unclean lips no coal will ever touch ii. You are you hate in the name of love, wrapping your judgments with white ribbons and pretend you carry salvation to the world on the back of black stained wings and the blood of those who fell to the cause all you leave are red footprints on history's pages and   echoes of the unquiet who refuse the silence of