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Bri Coffer Feb 2013
I don't have gills.

I don't have fins or a tail.

I draw in deep breaths that fill

my lungs with its hell.

I can't even tread water

or sink to the deep.

Yet I am the daughter

of aqueous sheep.

Everyone looks at me.

Nobody looks at me.

I look at me

or at least the same me that they see.

I'm surrounded by fins.

I don't like it.

I don't have gills.

I am a fish who cannot breathe in water.
Bri Coffer Feb 2013
It was a flash.
I remember the tickle
of the pain that passed.
It was a fickle kind of pain.
But then it was funny.
I giggled. I gasped. I grasped as it passed.
I was falling and tumbling as you touched my tummy.
No. In the words of the woman I am, "You caressed my breast."
You grabbed my shaking hand and you placed it on your chest.
Its strong thump transfixed me. Contradicted my thoughts.
It spoke all the words that your own mouth could not.
"I am hot. I am cold.
I am scared of what I hold.
I want you. I need you.
I fear you. I see you.
We share this feeling.
The one we can't name.
We share this feeling.
Because we are the same."
Bri Coffer Sep 2012
His shadow is the same

his breath, his mane

of hair that tickles my chin

is the same as when

he had come to me the night before

that heavy rain when I might take him in a breath

in that scent of sweet deceit.

That beautiful lie where truth won't meet.

A beautiful disaster where I admit defeat

and touch the mirror

watching the ripples form into a man I no longer recognize

but no longer despise.
Bri Coffer Sep 2012
I can't satisfy my desire
to touch and to hold and to caress your body
with my hands,
for my eyes
capture
every detail of your silhouette.
With these palms and fingers,
I want your alter-ego
to part from this paper torso of lead, charcoal, and bread crumbs.
Transcend to this medium so that my pencil may stop.
An idea I had when my art professor talked about how an artist can fall in love with the model he or she is drawing.

— The End —