Shaking my teeth loose on your table   The dullest white squares I'll never be   Now that you've picked each one apart   You can't look at me   I'll probably lose you now   But at least the ones I have still sparkle      Putting on your make-up everyday   before he wakes just so he can   stomach your face now,   easier than he could without,   Yeah, this is love, this is all   that you could want   Open equals heavier      Hold your hand out palm side up   Open, empty, light enough   Minutes all turn to months   this is one thing we have all learned   Equations make a sum but it doesn't add up      Signing up for that second semester   Cause you won't marry me without the degree   Once I fix things up right you won't   be so embarrassed of me   I'll never make it now,   but at least looking in the mirror won't feel like lying   Posing for your stilted vision   Academic postcard prison      Raise your chin love   Purge a poem I swore was finished   Heaping lines half chewed unconscious   Settle on a plot, chalk another loss   Stage set for breathing and   choking on swallowed conversations   Clutching and crawling for constant validation      Still nailed in the ruins of   corporate co-dependance   Still stuck on the thought   that you're the one exception   All the while just the same   I'm worried that the purpose   is how I look not how I lived      Let's get dolled up and play pretend   Cuz nothing stays honest when   every thought is cursed with intent   A pulse covered in skin   and words covered in lips   Taste the regret as it leaves your stomach   Coating your tongue with every noun   Watery eyes the only thing that makes sense now   Spitting your insides out   Start over start over start over