cigarette smoke.

all the things we've forgotten

sometimes you dream. you dream a dream of happiness and dancing in moonshine; of stardust on your wardrobe and crisp apples in your drawer. you think of ashes and black on your tongue.

you'll turn that all around, won't you?

you'll dream a dream so big and grand, that it cannot collapse into sand before your very eyes. so it cannot slip through your blood-bitten fingernails. so you cannot lose it (you loser).

can't you tell? they've put out the fire on your skin wrong, but it's fine, you've always loved the way ash tastes. the way it mingles with blood and the cotton in your ears. mourning the morning at midnight is such a sorry, sorry sight (mother didn't love you, and even if she did, it doesn't matter, does it?).

OH COME ON! won't you set yourself to pyre, for the ones who called you a coward―just this once? drench yourself in dramamine and clouds -- in the dysphoria of a ballroom floor, shiny with waxy wood and golden flecks.

fragmented realities and broken bones, you'll glitch out of existence one of these days, nobody would stop you, either. it'd be fun to watch you twist and burn in green flames and white water; in salty soil. bury you alive is what would happen, don't you know? you're a witch! burn the witch! accepting what is unknown is much too difficult, so everyone would sit in your closet, under the shelves, by the plushy you keep (teddy the teddy bear, you call it brownie because that's what it was like).

syrup slick skinned knees. you didn't know about how much the glass hurt under your skin, did you?

oh poor kid.

you were made of all the things we never loved.