I'd want to be a ****. I don't
want to be a colorful blooming
thing, fanning my delicate
petals, waiting to be plucked
and pinned for others'
viewing pleasure. I would be
a ****, no better
than anyone else, a flower
so persistent
I'm a nuisance. Go ahead.
Cover me in concrete.
I'll grow through it, cracking
the black, my face reaching
up for the sun.

we're not really meant
to be, but it's fun to think
that we could be.

you develop a skin
for it: porous peel
sponging up
affection until it's sopping
-slick, gushing excess, saturated
with him. then one day

he decides he doesn't like
the rind: takes his paring
knife and splits you
pink, scalps you
like an animal & thieves
the hide for himself,
leaves you

with the carcass: mangled
bones like barbed
wire cross-stitch, unraveling
& red heart slow-throbbing.
but you develop

a skin for it: scaly
& oil-slick like duck
wings: no sponge this time,
he rolls off. Epidermis
cells cluster into silver
scars, rebuild you, stamp

stitches over your heart.

he cut
open my underarm
flesh with a razor
blade, filled my veins
with heavy sand
till it mixed into blood
-mud, hardened to red
cement, body weighed
down
because of him

The love
bite on my neck
from where
your lips last
lingered
is fading
with my memory
of you.

I wish our love was a circle,
because linear love is no fun.
A circle goes 'round forever,
but a line always stops when it's done.

You said you decided to kiss me
when you saw the way I looked
at you. I wonder now
what my stare betrayed - what glimmer burning
there ignited yours. When you looked
in my eyes, did you see my heart
squeeze, veiny arms wrap its valves and chambers in a hug so tight
it ached? Did you
see the promise of the tulip
bruises I'd leave on your throat, slipping
and catching the breath from your chest?
Or the way you'd tangle our legs like bouquet stems, until I forgot
what was me and what was you? I don't know
what you saw in my eyes that night,
but I know what you didn't:
that I could have loved you,
if you let me.