i used to think no boy would ever
"touch me"
because i smoked when i was 13 and
i never showed much skin and
i was afraid he'd play hide and seek with my birthmarks
and he'd throw me away when he found the ugly ones.
i used to be afraid that no boy would ever
"love me"
because i stammer when i speak and
i didn't know what kind of gifts he might like so
i never bothered trying.
but then, i realized they are just boys and
they will find themselves tangled up in your heartstrings
regardless.
and they will hate themselves for feeling certain things about you, but
it's not their  because they're boys.
once when i was 14 i kissed a boy in a field with hesitance on my lips
and regret fell from my tongue
when he pulled away, for
it was nothing i had anticipated.
in the spring i kissed a boy who was two years older than me
on a trampoline. he told me
about high school parties and said
"truth or dare doesn't work in highschool".
but then in high school, i kissed a boy with burnt lips from the sun
and he said he loved me but
that never explained the other girls i always saw him
driving around in his car with.
in winter i kissed a boy with bony fingers and a king sized bed,
he introduced me to science.
i kissed an old soul in the dead of summer the next year
his laugh was an avalanche, his smile was a trip to Spain when you needed it most, his touch felt
like being brought back to life.
he made me weep.
in November i laid down with a boy after two weeks and proclaimed my eternal love for him.
talking to this one was like looking in the mirror and watching someone rip my guts out.
he loved me for my plate tectonic emotions.
but in december i met some punk and he stole me away with him to new york.
i finally felt nothing.

My blood changes blue to red like a stoplight from green to the sheets in your bed, the way you turn heads
and bite my teeth. We make war behind closed doors but love in the streets.
You got acquainted with the dim lights of this place, yet hated the way it traced its history into your face as your teeth grew heavy in your mouth.
There's a chill in my bones and I know that he knows, what its all about.
Sometimes I wish I could **** the man sleeping on my couch,
but I can't so I rip the tangles out of my hair and heart strings and I wear his flesh like a precious gold ring
And sometimes I wish I had more effective ways of coping instead of moping and self defeating and retreating to beating myself up until I fall,
because I hide in myself and is that even coping at all?
Tell me you're falling in love with the way I come home 3 hours late with flowers in my hair and the sun on my face,
the places where your hands swallow mine in an easier time
when my sinkhole eyes weren't the color of faded whites that had been washed with colors too much
and my lips weren't so frayed and chapped from the sting of your static touch.