i write all day like an adult,
i am learned and i use big words
and i know how to accurately craft
a metaphor about pain and harm.

but at the end of the day
i return to childlike phrases,
“it’s not fair,” and i feel more
of a release from that than
a composition notebook
filled from cover to cover
with a million different ways
of saying that i still,
despite everything,
am not happy.

i want to touch you in all the places no one has ever touched and hold your hands in all the ways you’ve never let them be held. i want to love you in all the ways you never knew you could be loved and show you how good two people can look between a set of sheets. i want to say to you all the things you should have been told that night and make you feel what you thought was only possible in a dream. i want to treat you the way you should have been treated before and let you know what a blessing you are to this world. i want to give you the whole world to you.

- bejal