I imagine your hands dwarfing someone else's and the image puts something bitter on the back of my tongue
I imagine you sweeping back hair that doesn't curl rebelliously at your fingers, insisting your hand stay with them
Words wet with dismay stick to my dry throat and if I could cough them out thered be nothing but different configurations of "stay"
I imagine your lips covering some spectre of a woman who is not me and I am amazed by the vastness of my hate

I remember the warmth of your chest as you pressed into my side, crowded me to the table, and my heart leapt into my throat
I couldn't think past awareness of you, felt you down my spine and into my shoes
That little was enough to do to leave me gasping
I'd be frigid if I insisted I could ever do without it

I remember kissing the mouthpiece of a roll and inhaling acrid smoke and you pressed the tip of your spliff to my lips before I had finished coughing and
Chased smoke like it was an ever-distant horizon vanishing into my chest
I am a ruined woman, stuck dreaming and waiting, there's humiliation that comes with this sort of infatuation

You get me tense, keep me constantly on the precipice of something, torso dangling over a railing, always threatening the possibility of free fall
I can hardly deal with my day to day humanity, the depravity you spark is beyond me and my meager means of processing

You look at me and I feel distinctly underdressed, publicly indecent, unnecessarily yearning as though I've never once known decorum
I fumble as I rarely do, trip over words like they're untied shoes, and my heart is imprinted under the press of your thumb
I've caught myself often wondering if I am merely imagining the heat of the summer and I am roasting in your company
My skin oversensitive, my heart aches with fresh burns, but when you leave I freeze and claw you back to me

The way that my mind, ever caterwauling, overthinking, shaking is so immediately quiet and still to give your voice room
That the world narrows to a point and the buzz of reality fades and I can focus on you
That the fear I cradle is smothered by the weight of your consideration
There's so much that qualifies as perfection that its unfamiliarity makes me consider running from whatever it is brewing between you and me.

There are words in a million languages
That pass between our eyes alone
They piece themselves together in my mind
And rest on the tip of my tongue

Was it just the whiskey talking?
Every word you said sounded like ***
Was it just the liquor talking?
Was I just a bit of fun?

Because I know better than to trust or lean
I’m far too smart to count on you for anything
I know not to bother with vulnerabilities
So why did soft words from you instantly break me?

I don’t lean into arms in the dark of night
And suddenly feel that I can breathe
I don’t hold to anyone for any reason
And momentarily feel my mind freeze

But it was quiet for a second, it was silent
There were no hands on my neck, nothing violent
It was bliss for a second, I was peaceful
Like I’d gone to bed starved and woke up full

But

I’m needy at my most honest
I need someone to hold me together
I could fix myself if I wanted
But I’m too tired to bother

I’m jealous at my most real
I’ll wrap around you like gauze
I’ll watch you be you with a smile
While hoping the whole world ***** off

I’ll sit with you like this
With the words you whisper down my neck
I told you I’d never been honest before
So please, don’t leave me a mess

As to take my hands
And break every single bone
If you'd only be so kind
Take my heart and leave me alone
But don't touch my mind
My body is yours to harm
But if you'd be so kind
Please, leave me my mind.

My age may harm me in eighty years
And you may still peel my skin from muscle
But if you would show me a kindness
I swear I wouldn't struggle.
Death doesn't scare me
Neither does pain
I can take on the world
With little more than my brain.

I'm liable to survive
Through what I'm put through
Then come back with a vengance
And rip the heart out of you.
So you may hurt me now
Go ahead, be my guest
But if you leave me alive
I'll have your last breath.

I've never believed you could absorb someone's energy
But I'd like to try it with you.
Open a vein, slit an artery
Drink you blood, your essence, through.

I want to crack your skull, delicately, thinly
See the wonders that brain of yours hides
I want to open your chest, rip your ribs apart
And study the workings of your insides.

It feels something like leaning over
The top of a tall building and staring down
At all the people who are and will do
The things I could but rather wouldn't

Perhaps it's the introduction of happiness
That's robbed my ability to express in words
When I am no longer feeling content
And can only reach for poetry as an outlet.

At the very least, I am aware of my regression
I find myself grasping for the pillars of my past
To ground me in the torrential rains and floods

I reached for a cigarette and it fixed nothing at all
I reached for the knife and it settled me for a moment
I reached for the religion that alienated me and my family

Within the music I used to listen to I found peace.
I found tears I hadn't realized I needed to shed.
And though the teachings are still to raw to read
I latched to the pillar of religion and it once calmed me.