When you leave
I can feel warmth in the space where you were
for hours.
The kiss you left blossoms from my cheek
and doodles roses all over my skin,
doodles roses all over around and through my skin.
I am transparent;
someone that might look at me
just after you’ve left
would see nothing,
well at least nothing but
the mist your breath left on my hair,
the shimmer your hands gave softly my cheeks,
and those roses that started with your kiss,
the roses that finished themselves in your absence,
drawing their glow like a memory,
a thought, a guess of how you might draw them
if you were here.
I don’t stir;
any movement might erase the lovely imprint
you’ve left on my pillow
and any rustling might shake
any lingering trace there might still be of you
from the air,
but if the quiet stays unbroken
and the sheets stay just like this,
I can let myself believe
that your eyes would gaze back at me
if I were to open mine
or that you might just kiss me again.
I can listen to my own breaths
and imagine that they are also yours,
feel the beat of my own heart
and pretend that I am resting against your chest,
or even that our chests
are one and the same.
I can plant and grow a whole garden of roses like that,
roses just for now,
roses just for you.
(With me
no matter what it is
it’s always just for you).

they thought i might **** myself
where they wrong?
i’m having a hard time being alive right now
(i said)
i’m sorry (i said)
(i said) it kills me
i can’t be the leader
you want me to be
the leader i should be
i’m not the woman
not the man nor the girl
i am the phone call you received.
were they wrong?

(i asked)
do you hate me?
(he said) no
there was no way that was possible
he could never hate me
(he said)

and i’ve since learned not to ask such silly questions
because he never said he loved me, no
he never said
that

they thought i might **** myself
were they wrong?
i still don’t know
no one ever took me seriously before
so what was different this time
did my eyes lose their shine
when i joked of self destruction?
did i lose the spark the life
the bit of intention in the arch of my brows
that told others quite precisely how even i
was surprised
by the words i had said.

but was it dull eyes?
or was it instead
the fact that they shone too much?
was my skin hot to the touch when i sent that email?
when I spoke those words did my breath catch
did my pulse quicken
did my pupils dilate
did ever space, every punctuation i wrote scream
not despair or insecurity
but a longing for purity
an animal hunger
a frightening calm
were they wrong?

(i asked)
does it scare you
when i get like that
does it scare you? do i
scare you?
(she said) yes
always (she said)

and i’ve since learned not to ask such silly questions.
because she never said it wasn’t my fault, no
she never said
that

and i’m so tired of trying
to puzzle out Fact from Truth
because they aren’t the same no
they’re not and i’m just so tired
of trying
because they thought i might **** myself
and I can’t get over the Fact
that I couldn’t ever realize how not okay
i really was
until someone showed me what okay meant
and told me i wasn’t it
not because of what i said
but because they saw the Truth in my eyes
that were either too shiny
or not shiny enough.

the Truth was there
they weren’t wrong
they thought i might **** myself
and they weren’t wrong.

(they asked)
do i hate me?
does it scare me?
(they asked)
and i didn’t respond
because i didn’t know
and still don’t

and they’ve since learned not to ask such silly questions
because i never said they were right, no
i never said
that.

your humor is clay
it’s thick and often dark
fun to grasp
naturally occurring
unpredictable yet familiar
something that delighted me as a child
and has only become more precious now
as we grow taller
as the nostalgia grows thicker and
as the time carved out for such things
grows shorter and thinner to match

your humor is clay
and i miss laughter
i fear that if i took time
for sculpting pots now
i wouldn’t remember how
to make everything symmetrical
i fear my pots
would look like tears
and yours would still
look like suns