Lies I Tell My Mother —

I love you.

I Need Bruises Not Strings —

don't
don't kiss my forehead
don't try to hold my hand
don't apologize for anything. ever.
don't pull my chair out at the dinner table
don't open any doors for me
don't try to pay the bill
don't let me put my feet on the dash
don't ask me how my day was
don't try to comfort me
don't introduce me to your parents
don't try to get to know me
don't count the days since we first met
don't call me when you make it home safe
don't even make it home safe

You Are So Very Brave For Choosing To Continue On —

some nights the wind blows
just a little too hard
and the earth shakes your organs
till they're lying beside you
when rock hard truths shatter your bones
hydrochloric acid corrodes your vision
the jagged edges of your lover's lips
tear apart your flesh
as their fingers rip at your skin

nights are spent wandering inside the haunted
abyss your mid has become
time is spent going back far enough to
find the very moment everything changed

you want to know what went wrong

sold souls to those once beloved
halos traded for horns at the hands of traitors
encouraged by the pleading whispers
of the devil, himself,
before promptly abandoned by his other minions

you survived the supposed "worst of it"
with battle armor torn to shreds and
knives left in your back for safe keeping
battles fought while banking on facts proved fiction

what you are is a fool in warriors clothing
with a sense of direction lost long ago