I need 

I dropped your love letters for the hand of someone else,
Someone who looked me in the eye, rather than the thigh
Someone who loved me from the beginning,
Someone who painted my face with kisses instead of paint,
Someone, anyone, but you.

Each day,
Flowers in my hand, underneath the Pines
A stick of lip gloss,
A denting smile,
A bitter kiss on the cheek,
A cold walk home, accompanied by the pouring rain

Then, your façade melted away
Flowers turned to vines,
Kisses to scratches,
Hands to claws.
I felt tethered to the capsized vessel that holds our diminishing love,
Being dragged beneath the cashing waves, 
To the expanse of darkness that lies beneath the rigid shore.

The girl I knew as quiet was really a monster,
Her teeth turned to fangs and she bared me in her ravaged hands.
The girl that cried wolf ran from the predator around the bend,
Flinching as I feel the coursing race of her fear pool through the needle of the IV,
I simply closed my eyes and got lost in the frigid sting of our lips under the night sky.

Then, the vines tightened,
I peeked my eyes over the cement walls to see the rising sun, just a moment in the light
Ripping the scabs off my hands so you had “Nothing to worry about”
Popping pills to fill the holes in your heart but not the blisters on your knuckles,
Getting drunk off the scent of your perfume and high off of the pulsing reciprocation of a jail cell engraved with my name and the oscillation of desolate handcuffs on the bedside table,
Forgetting who I am so the vibrancy inside you shines above my placid negativity,
No! No, no, no, no. 
I shouldn’t be thinking this way,
I need to keep loving you,
I need to keep lying
I need,
I need the pulling of the chain to remind me that somewhere, deep inside of me, I’m still alive

I needed so much but wanted to so little,
So intoxicated with the date on the calendar,
I watched the days fly by, 
And I felt myself tug harder and harder against the vines you shoved down my throat. 

I put my tears in a bottle, then put it to the shore. 
I swam out the ocean of my tears and climbed onto the jagged rocks that line the haven of my redemption,
I traded in my handcuffs for shards of glass and climbed over the towering cement walls
And stepped into the sun

You turned to me, 
Hair oscillating to the frigid Spring tempest,
And asked me
“Do you love me?”
I smiled. 
“No.”
And I felt the vines that once tethered me snap to the weight of my newfound resilience.