to the girl on the bus

I've got bombshells for eyes and blood under my fingernails.

I've got 1am tears staining my new sheets.

I've had friends who'd never heard their heart beats
and friends who always kept their fingers on their wrists.





And then I've got you.

the only one to lay down next to me,
face-down on the pavement,
waiting until I was ready.

You probably didn't know I was praying.

And you probably didn't know about all the lost prayers,
the post mortem prayers,
the prayers I was begging Time.





I don't remember how we reached the top,
but I remember when I met you
everything pulled in your direction when you walked past,

 even the tall dark handsome ones.

Like you had your own kind of gravity.

And you never seemed to notice.


Since then we've made this rhythm,
this heart beat that slowed everything down.


And I stopped praying to Time.

And now everything's off tempo,
I'm not sure I'll survive the aftermath.
All that's waiting is the blood soaked gauze.


I'm losing my hair from this.
Along with most of the grip in my hands.

And I've got third degree burns covering up and down my ribs,
from when my heart exploded the second your arms let go of me.





I can't tell you the number of casualties there will be,
or where they'll burry the bodies,
but I can tell you I wont be with them.
I'll be with the wounded.

But don't worry, we all play hurt.
The wounds will heal with a little gold in their cracks.



This is for you.

For the beauty in it and for the ugliness,
for the person who loans me her lungs,
and who also loans me her words sometimes
because my lips get tied together.


For the girl on the bus who dared to asked me what my name was.