Natalie Quiles

For years you’d been starved, floating on air, running on the fumes of love and alcohol, caffeine and lust. Where one wasn’t, another was, and you’d shift between vices like a shadow, like the flicker of a flame.

One day, someday, today, the light will come.

Your memory rests in the shadows of my collarbone; you are dabbed like perfume
Behind the lobes of my ear, in the creases of my elbows, at the base of my neck.

My body is not a manifestation of my worth, but an expression of my self-love.

When you’re cut, I bleed. When you don’t eat, I starve. These are not words of sweetness or beautiful monogamy; this is a mutated cell that affects logical thought and choice.

Give me your pain
In the threads of your favorite shirt
That smell like sweat and musk and regret…
And a little like vanilla.

You shouldn’t be allowed to make me feel like this

What happens when you can’t even love yourself?

I’m sorry that I can’t learn from your mistakes,
That I’m too stubborn;
And dip my hand into boiling water
When I already know it’s going to burn.

In summer,
I am reborn.

You are my favorite nightmare.
You leave me breath heavy, heart racing.

We were a classic tale of hourglass love; the moment our eyes met, the glass had been flipped, and we only had hours to make our mark before the final grain of sand would fall.