beautiful sins

“

You tell me I have a knack for choosing awful words 
but you, with your words designed to wound
lodging themselves in my veins and 
refusing to budge
clogging my arteries with contempt 
burrowing their way beneath my skin
until violet blooms, resplendent
until I give in and my knees buckle 
under the weight of your gaze
until my synapses flicker and 
my heartbeat stutters, tattooing
staccato beats against my hollow ribs

And I can feel your words choking me
as they force their way down my throat
leaving a foreign bitterness within me
for your words are vines, 
snaking across my chest and wrapping
around my bones, squeezing the will
out of me and oh, my bones are brittle with your hate
it’s acrid smoke filling my lungs as my mind clouds;
for your words are shards of glass 
pressed tenderly into my wrists 
and oh god, how it hurts but 
the pain resonates within me
it echoes through the hole you left when you 
ripped my childhood out and god, 
it’s killing me but I don’t ever want it to stop 
so I stay and force myself to swallow your words
to blink back the tears and meet your gaze. 
I love you, I love you, I love you but 
I cannot listen to you speak without
tearing myself apart.

The bruises you leave in my mind bloom
indigo-violet in the starlight 
I dig my fingers into them, 
trace the swirls of blood,
chasing the last of the anguish
because I’ve never been a good girl,
never one to stop picking at scabs
and I never know when to walk away 
because all I know how to do 
is to get hurt. 

I raise my head to meet your gaze
because I never learn,
never know when to stop,
to draw the line and give in
I can feel your icy stare boring 
right through my skull 
scrutinising my every thought and 
I know you’d laugh if you knew 
about the tears I’m wrestling away
but something’s different this time,
the tears sting my eyes but they 
don’t fall, instead they cling, frozen,
to the rings of sickly purple beneath my eyes
and I feel the frost creeping through me
and oh, I can’t breathe but that’s alright
because the crimson in my veins has 
halted it’s ceaseless flow and darling
I hope you’re happy now because 
in the end, you got what you wanted:
the iceman and the girl with the frozen heart
maybe I am my father’s daughter after all

”