So…***.

I don't have it. People never seem entirely surprised by this, I don't know.
Maybe my tell is my general blushy-ness around any and all cute humans, or maybe it's the way I yelp when they hug me too hard…

But it's not for lack of trying.

You see,
I am an extremely intimate person until my skin gets involved.
Then I'm all turtles' shells and touch-me-nots, shrink away, shrink away, hide, be small, be tame, be timid.
Or else like a wild animal - claws sharp, bite back, all fight and flight and defense.

I don't have *** - *** has me. Caught by the throat, a deer in headlights, no way to get away, stuck.

Stuck in his basement, seven years old.
The magician next door tricked me and changed my meaning of the word magic forever.
Never again would I put my faith in illusions.

But now, there's this girl, and she is so beautiful -
When I look at her, I can't see straight.
But she is no illusion.

She tells me she wants to help me carry my baggage,
But I don't want to tell her my baggage is a body bag
And it's me inside-
Choking for air,
And I wish it was because she takes my breath away, but it's not.

But sometimes, she does take my breath away.
And when she does, I want to tell her
Everything.

I want to tell her that if she holds me
Close enough,
Long enough,
I won't dare shrink away.

I will grow into her until we are bursting together,
Until we are bold,
We are soft,
We are free,
We are
Everything-

I never imagined I could be
with another person.
So close,
together,
We could be more than magic.

It's one am and I'm laying out on my lawn because there is a small chance I'll see a meteor, and I am in no position to pass up a wish right now.

Because I've been wishing on stars and bones and praying and hoping to forget about you.

To forget that I loved you.
To forget what you did to me.
To forget how when I was with you, my pulse was so loud I would write melodies to the beat of my heart and let you play them for me.
Let you play them in all the right places.

You.
You were my
Brooding poet.
My midnight partner.
You were the hope I didn't know existed.

And it's nights like these I curse these **** city lights I used to love so much
before you came around.

Don't Stop.

Was the gentlest command that ever passed your lips.

My fingers danced across the keys,
Playing to the tempo of your scribbling pen.

We wrote a symphony that day,
Broken to the beat of our passionate hearts.

The arias of my poetry were never enough for you.
You had to hear them played in the form of

Chopin
Bach
Strauss

Anything you could write to.

I lost myself once-
Twice-
Once?
More times than I care to count.

I searched for my reality
In dark corners,
Zigzagging alleyways,
And the hearts of others.

I found nothing
But fear,
Pain,
And shame.

I avoided mirrors
And instead reflected on myself
I was there all along,
Waiting to be seen.

I wanted bones.
I wanted stick thin wrists and jutting shoulder blades.
I wanted ribcage ladders leading to a faltering heart.

I wanted to die-
But I called it something else.
I called it perfect body.

I called it finally confident,
I called it happy and
They called it sick.

I challenged them with "willpower"
and they threw back "nine months to live if you keep this up."

I was never meant for compassion and sympathy;
It was recklessness that governed my silent reveries,
And it was love that made me stitch myself into them.
Thread by thread, growing ever louder, ultimately becoming too grand
For my thinning soul to bear.

There was a stunning symbolism floating through the air that night.
We laughed about it without acknowledging it out loud,
Fumbling with lighters and glances cast downward.

I jumped a fence, in a dress, four hours past curfew.
You said, "You owe me an adventure, I saved your life today."
You had, and every day before that.

But never again since.