once, i met a boy who was drowning

on the surface of the sea, with a salty heat on my tongue

i was boldness outlined in honey gold, born of soft dawn upon the rose sky, born of sugar curls and rounded shoulders and a body melding into sweet cream

i was gentle touch wound around a chaotic center, cool as the kiss of seafoam, yet dragged too long beneath the waves

i was a boiling center of a hurricane and he was a hailstorm boy with caramel words and a throat that burned with his scalding whispers

he was raging flame against the surface of scorching skin, searing brush of vermillion fingers desperately searching for the innocence of cleansed veins while his blood turned charred onyx in the presence of his own venom

he told me things i had never heard before

because a hailstorm boy like him knew how to twist the storm inside me into a neat coil, just for one night

he knew how to find intoxication in the tender flesh of a girl seemingly unmarred, and he reveled in the taste of sweet sunset dust against his hungering lips, even if i could feel the tinge of smoke trailing his clammy skin

he sought in me, the saturation he'd traded in place of the poison

and i thanked him for a sip of that searing, curdling drought because nothing had ever tasted so thrilling

for a moment, he made me dizzy enough to forget the borders of my body, to forget the smears of color outlining my existence, and we were insubstantial

we were infinite smudges against the canvas of a decaying reality, and for a night, my bones were no longer ashen gray, sickened by a cold disease, but golden things melting within me

ichor flowing, eyes bright, and lips pressing poppy blossoms to hands

though he was not what i had asked for, he knew how to hold the bloodied hearts of scarred up girls like me

he knew i would fall so fast and fall so hard simply because i could get drunk on his voice, the heat of sour breath masked by saccharine syrup and foggy amaranth pink

he knew that girls like me had turned sad inside

and he knew that he was being nicer to me than i had ever been to myself

so he drew hot hands along my contusions and praised them long enough for my own eyes to deceive me

he ignored the faint scent of blood, the lingering ash of a battle fought at the center of a fire

and he acted as though my sugary softness were enough to melt the bitterness of his corrupted being

bloodshot eyes and aching breath, a heart that beat so slow

he was bruised fists broken by shattered mirrors and the silhouettes of boys tearing themselves apart

he smiled something tragic, and charged towards the waters while screaming that he was afraid to drown

but i was drowning, and i had been for so long

that even drunk on his voice and lost in his touch, i knew he was sinking to the bottom of the sea

he sought in me, the taste of honeydew on candy teeth, and the spongey feel of cake skin sliding beneath his palms

but he got it wrong

i was not like those girls he devoured in careful, teasing bites with only the aftertaste of dulled bile

i was the vessel of carved out words and empty chests, of sunken eyes and peeling tissue and rotten dirt everywhere

i was gaping holes where teeth should be and tongues burned by acrid sickness

i was the vessel of a being ruined by the storm, by the sea, worse than any hail he could bring down upon me

and if i was burning in his hands, it was not because of his smoky heat, or his soured breath, or his broken words

if i was burning, it was because i set myself on fire

because i sought out his crimson eyes and crimson mouth, and i reveled in the taste of his poison, of his destruction

it was because i didn't mind the feeling of two decaying hearts whispering suicide songs to each other

and it was because i was white sheets in whiter rooms, and bodies left to fall apart

i was gritty hair and gray flesh, i was battered and torn apart

i was the silhouettes of girls who squeezed out the blood in their veins, who drained the marrow in their soggy bones, who clawed themselves out of their own bodies

because yes, he was drowning

but i had already been drowned