i want you to be here when
i’m no longer soft and beautiful.
i want you to stay for when
my voice slips out of itself
and into another, when the crescent moons
of my body turn stubborn and rigid
and my chest is gutted, stitched, sculpted
like marble like artwork like a chiseled
gravestone reading “here lies your golden girl,
basked in till her light changed hues.”
stay until all my cells have been replaced
and i look at you with different eyes,
hold you with different arms.
this body is changing for my today
but staying for your tomorrow.

you don't believe in god
neither do i, most of the time
but neither of us would ever touch a ouija board
and we talk about gas station karma and
you rap your beaten knuckles on wood

and maybe it was just the right place and the right time
and maybe we were just both ****** up at the right times

but i met you
and you met me
and all i wanted to do was meet you over and over again

now when i wake up at night your arms are around me
and i believe in magic

"don't let anyone you wouldn't want to be
inside you"
stuffy grandmothers whisper after bar mitzfahs
or quinceaneras or senior proms
while they are whisked away by the rough hands of boys.

protecting the inches between her legs
will always be more important than anything else.

ankles crossed sitting on the washing machine
until her mom slaps her across the face.

spent virginity:
what if the blood never stops
running

her eyes are brown
but when they meet mine
i swear, it's like staring into a kaleidoscope

an empty bottle of barefoot wine
lies,
crucified,
in the middle of the sea of plush carpet
you watch her reach slender shaking fingers out
to the thick,
cheap
green glass
and the bottle spins
oh god,
does the bottle spin
to the saccharine nervous laughter of girls still barely children
and before you know it, the battered cork is facing you,
confronting
you.
thin pink lips let out whispers about how "is she gonna kiss a girl?
that's kind of
gross."
and suddenly you're meeting her hazy eyes
and then watching her lips,
wet
from thirty dollar lip gloss and wine stolen from target.
she licks them.
your palms are pressing into the plush beige
leaving stains
when you lift them
to let your fingertips hover around her waist
and then your eyes are closed and
your lips are pressed against hers,
hard.
before you could remember how she tastes,
you're both crouched back down on your
respective spots in the circle
and she laughs
and she says
"i can't believe i did that!

i'm so drunk!"

how do i mourn a concept?
how did i lose something
that was never really there?