I stand on naked promises that follow
vague feelings,
Half considered, half poured over.

Irritation that rubs raw, chaffing against who you are.
Your fingers are pinned down.
Imprinting on the mattress. It screams out to others: this is where it happened.
Where sour dreams poured down your neck,
caressing the skin,
it said “I love you, please don’t ever leave, look how close we are”,
half dreaming in my closet nightmare.

I pick open my skin years later and find the stubble of your hands all over me.
Pricking up through skin, I pluck them out. Pull up the root and rid myself forever.

I feel your breath grunt with each one.

I became a refugee in your haven.
Believing my feet
When they ran to you.
A thick velvet coat,
Too beautiful to see through
Wrapped itself across my neck

And in your man made dark
The light inside you died.
(So you stole mine)
To see your own fingertips underneath.
You draped it over me,
But it didn’t belong to me

You’d like to think the light was ours.
We both breathed it in,
Two mouths,
Singing in the light,
Smiling to each other,
Always together,
Screaming, together.

But could you hear it?
Did you want to?
I lived in your darkness.
Set up a home.
Pots, pans, bed sheets
Fumbling around, making a mess

Until I forgot that day
When you draped it over my shoulders

And instead recalled
Buying it
Checking the price tag,
Sinking down to you
Down to me.

And each breath.
Trapped in my head.

I feel it shaking head to toe,
why am I too young to know
the sharp knife in my throat?

Pull me in and throw it out,  
was I supposed to know
hands can’t forget?
So they wander far from here.

Guilty hands, guilty for not giving you what you wanted.
Who felt that?
Was it my fault that my thighs closed together?
That your hands made me sick,
crying,
for my body.