No matter what happens in the future,
this will always be true of right now.
Today, I woke up smiling
because you were holding me.
Yesterday, in the low light of your bedroom
it felt like we were playing house.
Outside cars drove by on rain-slicked streets,
mugs of hot tea sat on the windowsill,
and I’ve never felt safer than under that blanket.
With you and within you,
I am finding the Home I’ve never had before
as the person I’ve never been until now.

Your scars are reminders carved into every inch:
notes on the backs of your hands,
tied strings crawling between fingers,
following alongside veins.
They recede into dark space
under sleeves not long enough
to hide what you’d rather forget.

Why do you trace your bones on the outside in red scabs?
Are you afraid of losing them,
your bones deserting you while you sleep?
You’d wake up melted into your bed sheets
while your bones enjoy the sunlight.
You always look downwards anyways.
Do you forget where they are, your delicate bones?
Is that why you paint them on?
They lie right under the surface
waiting for you to notice them
protecting your vital organs.
Your heart still beats and
you have a pair of lungs.
They work hard for you even
when you forget about them.

But that’s all you are, skin and bones.
If you tear yourself apart all that’s left
is your skeleton, roaming the Earth
with that same distant gaze that
I’ve seen so many times before.
Save yourself.

Lay me down on your fragile chest.
I’ll sleep softly, rising and falling,
swimming in the tides of your mind.
But sometimes it feels
like your heart will burst open
far past your ribs and into the sky,
sending me flying out into orbit
to float on and watch life go by.

Let me disappear in your mind.
Next to you I’m so small,
there’s no need to make room.
Let me paint with your wild ideas.
Feel how I fit among your racing thoughts?
Let’s set them all free.

Hold my whispers deep in your heart.
They tremble the way your soul rumbles.
Let me sing melodies atop this fearsome beat.
Wait for the decrescendo.
Do you hear how quiet I can be?
Let’s make noise.

Rest your tired eyes on me.
I try not to shrink under your gaze.
We’re walking down parallel roads,
with matching stones in our pockets
to hold us down to the Earth.
Can’t you see that I understand?
Let’s be weightless.

Burn me. Make me feel you.
Let me see your blinding light. Be close enough
to ignite the soul. Crash into me,
walls of fire burning every inch.
You can’t burn what you can’t reach.
Make me feel you, make me matter.
Burn me, make me real.

Scorch me, singe my very being.
Leave red scars shaped like hands shaped like you;
burn them into my skin.
Don’t cut, don’t make me bleed.
Don’t force the Inside out so quickly;
it gets messy. And god knows we can’t be trusted
to clean up our own messes.
Don’t melt me, set fire to me whole.
I can’t drip; I need to stay together
to know that I’m all here.

Lay siege to me with flame.
I can’t stand smoke or ash, simply
singe every layer with your sparks
until the inside is all that’s left.  
The underneath will emerge,
maybe stronger. Maybe not.
Burn me to find what’s there.

Burn me, please, or try.
Can one set fire to the self?
When the body burns away does the soul
catch the rest? Does it spiral upwards
in the smoke? Does it become the smoke?
There has to be something more, I’m sure
that when you char my body all that’s left
will be all that matters.

So experiment with me, even if you don’t believe.
Play with fire, if you care at all.
Burn me to the core, to the innermost levels
of all that is flammable.  
I need to know I’m really here.