literature

vices.

Deviation Actions

arabesque-o's avatar
By
Published:
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Literature Text

there's hell in your eyes, painting them black cesspits that could eat away the stars.
you tell me you need out of your head. the moon pulls higher in the sky, quietly marking the hour. our feet hang over empty air, the tracks below an open casket. you inhale nicotine and exhale burning buildings. smoke curls like fingers into the body of the night.
we're breaking like an ocean. eggshells on pavement.
i can't hold you together,
so you down handfuls of little white pills like peppermint candies.
like if you just keep swallowing, they'll whitewash the walls of your ribcage and purge your dirty heart.
you drink like you're always thirsty,
like you've found the antidote to forgetting.
instead, i hold matches to the dry tinder of my parchment skin to see if it catches fire
to burn down the gosttown of all the things i can't forget.
i dig trenches in my skin to leak out poison pulsing in my veins and the dirty swingset in my bones.

we both have memories we can't kill.

the black in our heads is bigger than the breadth our arms,
and our vices only ever bury us deeper.
i'm nearly ready to step off this train,
but i know if i do,
you'd come too.
and maybe we still love this life too much.

my lifelines flutter in my wrists like tiny birds begging me to set them free.
she tells me they are the branches of a tree,
outstretched to the sun, never birds.
she tells me the birds lie in my chest
and she shows me how to set them free with adrenaline and high places.
we're relearning life's anthem, this time singing without the stitches that held our mouths shut.
do you ever get tired of being sad?
© 2012 - 2024 arabesque-o
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neonsquiggle's avatar
It's breathtaking.