i heard my mom use the L word
when i was telling her
about my personally forbidden escapades
with the boy
my doctor
who i’ve let see
a framed picture of
an iota of my wounds
but still cannot bring myself to call
my boyfriend
as if the word is somehow poisoned
as i’ve convinced myself
in my loneliness
that the idea of that
feeling that most definitely isn’t love
was the stinging venom
burning through my veins
melting my skin to
waxy torrents coursing
from gaping wounds
butchered into my supple dermis
trying to escape my corporeal prison.

my body seizes at the utterance
of two syllables
because i am terrified that
the house of cards that
hold up that word on such an
unnatural pedestal
will crumble
evaporate into the
ether hanging around me
keeping me drunk on
that piquing ache churning
reaching deeper than
the bedrock of my stomach
that my incessant pepto can’t touch
a blowfly burrowing itself
into the mucosa of my abdominal cavity
that i know is filled with my
vital organs
but feels more like a vacuum.

he’s not my boyfriend
even though i tell him to turn over
in the darkness of our
shared slumber
so i can be the big spoon
and he can teach me how to breath
his respirations in his back
pressing my chest into
inhalation
just as my head on his chest
rises and falls
with him
my pectoral moon
pulling my tides
surrendering to the
inevitable turn and living
in that imperceptible moment
between inhalation and exhalation
a silence wherein
we are one
and i feel like his skin
could perhaps be mine.