there's something off-putting about watching the woman who gave birth to you standing there helpless with tears dripping down her porcelain face out of her doe eyes. it's so off-putting that the sight of that turns my sympathetic neutrality towards this woman into irrational fear and a sort of trembling down my already withering spin. i don't quite know how to describe the feeling i get when i see her like this, but i see her, frame by frame. tears still falling and i'm still there, i suppose i'm waiting for someone to jump in and become that home that she so desperately needs, but no one does and she's still there. i remember when i was younger and still stuck on that ridiculous idea that monsters existed, i would be mortified to sleep alone and i would cry senselessly until she came in, picked me up and dragged me into her warm bed. i remember how she sang to me, slightly off key, the itsy bisty spider and i remember how her laughter felt like warmth on my skin. i tried to keep the warmth. i tried to save it for a rainy day. it was raining tonight, not from the sky but from my home. she was drenched with regret and anxieties that splattered on the floor like a broken glass of wine and i didn't know what to do, so i grabbed her soft hands and sang the itsy bisty spider with her until i felt her laughter hitting my cheek like it never left.

i want to press my lips to the places you forgot could know softness. i want to explain the color of your eyes to a room full of blind people. i want you to touch me, even if your palms burn holes into my skin, even if you make me bleed. i want to clutch onto your t-shirt with my head on your chest and i want to play with your hands, trace your veins and kiss you. i want to feel your lips pressed against mine as you moan my name. i want to hear you speak when it’s late and no one’s awake when it’s you and me
beneath the trees and the towers
as we look from below
captivated by the canvas above us. i want to make you blush forever. i want to drag my tongue along your jaw, i want to be lazy and drunk and sick with love. do you remember when you told me about the person you were afraid of becoming? i said i wasn't scared, and i told you i was proud of you. i want to know everything and i want to learn it from you. i want my name to constantly be in your mouth, like its something you can't spit out. i want to be the manifestation of what you imagine gentleness is. i want to be a collection of breath in the corner of a quiet room. i want to tell you all the good things about yourself. i want to point to the place in your chest where it aches and i'll show you that i can be soft. i want to stay by your side.
i want to teach you things about softness and brutality. i want you to tell me about the callouses on your hands and how they got there. i want you to know that my shaking hands feel empty every time i look at you. i want to show you focused attention up close. i was not born into caring, i have spent years learning how to be gentle. i want to put my mouth on what makes you sorry. i want to make your heart overflow and i DON'T want you to turn down the heat. i want to be your favorite refraction of light. i want you to drown me with the textures of your words and the colors of your touch. i want to know how your sighs taste when the words don't come & how your hands feel when there's nothing left to hold. i want to love you with every fiber of myself that i can command,
i want to love you
*i want to love you