you try to stroke the bowl of my belly, it's not romantic & sends the sea swimming my muddy eyes a flood.  your mouth sounds out words; they ask how i'm feeling, but i don't tell you what i didn't eat for breakfast this morning or the triple digit number of calories shoved down my throat yesterday.  i don't mention the measuring tape noosed about my waist, just to keep those twenty-two inches slender.  how could i explain how sometimes i gently imagine wild animals tearing off my flesh them teeth scalpel sharp until me a pile of glittering bones.  until i am perfect.  you desert mirage.  you so so very sweet leaf tea dancing on my tongue & these days, i miss you like summer when you drive to the movies.  wanna wrap my narrow ankles round & round your blue black throat & sink my teeth deep in your lower lip.

my bones are yours for holding & we watch the planets collide.  your naked knees bowed against my newborn flesh.  i don’t trust anyone with the moon & where were you when the world collapsed?  the universe broke when i learned to love you, forbidden symmetry found in some terrible tangle of muscles & tissue.  i wore my favorite old t-shirt, cotton stained with blotted cream & coffee, you clung to me, frenetic fingers begging for some semblance of union.  we so blurred lines became invincible in our quaking presence.  we are entwined, a knotted strand of genetic material & starstuff, quoting communist daughters’ poetry & commanding a listen.  listen.  carl sagan is my personal jesus, I tell you, for nothing is romantic like biology.  there are notches in my hips for your resting elbows, your trembling palms, this is where you belong.  young eyes cracked open wide, we are spinning into the depths of some luminous night, human shells shed far behind.  we are divine.  we are celestial.  this is who we are.

i am a china doll waiting to be dropped. i am thin-legged spiders starving on the ceiling.
i am easy prey. i am an accident waiting to happen.
i am storm clouds closing in.  i am a hummingbird’s last breath.
i am a riverbed gone dry.  i am a shot of whiskey with twice the aftertaste.
i was nothing but a wasteland.  i have a history of disaster.
i have left bloodstains on everything i’ve ever touched.  i do not know how to feel real anymore.
i am lying when i pretend i’m not shatter-proof fragile.  i am saying my goodbyes before hellos.
i love with the whole of my heart.  i am waiting to be told i’m worth keeping.
i am sleepy eyelids.  i am the waning moon.
i am terrified.  i am euphoria.
i will not apologize for my sadness any longer.
i am not defined by the rainstorm in my brain.
i am my own one.  i am human and i need your love.
i belong to everyone.  i belong to the fireflies making love against the night sky.
i am something else.  i am beautiful because i am.
i am alive, if barely.

all my life, i have waited for promises.
she left, he left,
they dissipated with ease,
smoke fading into the morning air
i have learned to stand
on my own two feet,
a little unsteady &
a little unsure, but
i’m still here after
trying not to be.
swallowed poison, spit food
from my stomach, sharpened
blades against my skin.
& here i am.
isn’t it beautiful?
isn’t the world worth
staying a little longer for?

now, i know enough not
to threaten myself with
certain oblivion.  that i will not
be another sad story.  that
there are somewheres i have
never travelled, *** that must
be had, faces i have not yet
split into smiles with my own.  
& i don’t quite know who i am,
no certainty nor sureness, but
i’m ready for the good to come.

& now there’s you & i don’t think
i’ve wanted this badly.  me, i’m on the verge
of becoming the best of myself &
then there’s you.  give me your forever &
i’ll kiss you every morning.  give me your forever
& i’ll never regret a thing.  give me your
forever & i will go until no end
to love you for the rest
of your days.

i’m sorry to sound so confessional but
after trying to sink these feelings to
the bottom of the seabed, i learned
that words float.  you are not a shipwreck
waiting to happen.  you are mine
& i am yours &
let’s just see
what sort
of world
we are
as one.

you dream with eyes wide open, & i want to be part of that ****** ***** nestled within the lacing of your ribs.  say something or don’t even speak, just run your fingers down the curve of my spine & tell me you love me.  take me to neverland & don’t look back, our secret world, & ******* if i don’t love the way you make me feel infinite.  no more clipping my own wings, i will not be an emergency waiting to happen.  stay with me until the sun supernovas and we explode together in a shower of sparks & stardust.  stay with me.  you sing lullabies with your reaching arms & kiss my eyelids closed, soothing me to sleep with whispery words & strokes of skin on skin.  maybe there’s a rainstorm in my brain, but wait with me until the sky breaks through & our cheeks are bathed at last in blue.

your piercing eyes undress me
before your fingers even reach for my clothes,
strip them aside to reveal my yielding skin,
trembling beneath your skin
with wanting for you.   you touch me
& i don’t apologize
for my naked stomach,
the battle scars lining my thighs,
the way i cry out against your neck.  
your murmured you’re beautiful is the only
i believe, & my love, i feel i might be
when we are one.  
just yesterday,
i stamped my lips ceaselessly
down your body, left a trail of kisses
in my wake.  you were part of me
just yesterday, & now i’m counting the hours
until you will be
again.

you, with your scarless skin & healthy limbs,
breath unhindered by ash & smoke,
you don’t quite understand
the ways i like to bleed.  i am not my own
anymore.  so many moons have come & gone
since i last belonged to myself.  maybe i’m
a mess of me.  maybe my kisses sometimes taste
like melancholy
& remind you of a pain you’ve long since
forgotten.

but the tides are turning with my name
spelled in sea foam.  this time, i’m no longer
losing.  i can trace my healing wounds
through the rough fabric of my jeans
& no longer try
to cut them back open.  these nights
there is no salty slick of tears
staining my cheeks, no liquor lingering
on my tongue.  winter is passing, & finally
i am thawing.

my palms tremble
with the weight of your presence,
safely held in my heart.  you are
a rainstorm threatening to drown me &
i don’t want to have to survive you.
i have lived enough loss to know i’m ready
for the good days.
you & i are not just sunshine & flowers, but
the thought of you is forever burned into my brain,
always occupying,
always there.
darling, i love you endlessly & know
i’m yours.