I grasp the bones beneath my skin
to remind myself that I am real. The column of my spine a stack of tinker toys The scaffolding of collarbones swooping to my shoulders their points shallow drawer knobs The bowl of pelvis edges jutting upward and out Laying flat on my back I curl fingers under my rib cage Imagine a bird replacing my heart For all that I know is there It still feels empty And want to give something a home
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If you let me
I would unfurl the petals of your fist And hover Lapping up your pain Tickling your palm An apian sin eater We are always maybe
Almost Not quite One step forward Another one back We could be But we're not And won't Because as much as the promise holds The possibility of disappointment releases And so we kiss We dance We embrace We share a couch, a blanket Feet touching or legs entwined And we deny that there's something simmering Just beneath our surfaces You should have plucked me, tucked me to turn brittle between the crisp pages of your favorite book, a mausoleum of text. It would have been fitting. You could have run a thumb across me, remembered fondly.
You could have picked each petal, placed it on your tongue, tasted the pepper of day-lilies, and chewed, making me part of you at an atomic level. Unwittingly taking me everywhere you went. Instead I will wilt wetly, slowly browning, becoming dirt. I bore no fruit, dropped no seeds to overwinter and emerge green next season. I live on in nothing and no one. Close your eyes
Stick a pin in a map of the world That is where we will meet On the day that has been determined To be statistically most beautiful If it's in the middle of the sea We'll charter boats Arrange who boards whom And let the other vessel go Vowing to swim back alone if things go afoul Bring ice cream And the styrofoamy cones They melt on your tongue in just the right way I'll bring a map And a pin So we can pick And pick again These places we've yet to see I will tattoo each of them on my ribs A list of where you've marked me Indelibly In places no one knows I will lift my shirt Let you trace the letters Feel the impermanent permanence That is ink become flesh And know that while technically impossible I've made you a part of me I gave you one heartbeat
Prised it from my chest Held it tightly so it wouldn't escape I lost my breath Ceased to think Did all I could not to go slack I placed it in a music box A dancer inside The spring releasing As she kicks Once Twice Rapidly Yours now to keep winding I didn't know By surrendering a beat That I'd depend on you for all of them I willingly surrender ephemera to the void
Swallowed by time places and people left behind When you run your mind is on your feet The next steps That will take you away From this From them The breadcrumb trail of photos and stuffed animals gone long stale So you can't find your way back Stumbling through life like woods Dense and overgrown |