Sunlight kisses the fingertips
Of the lovers who have chased me
Across the mattress
The way I have chased your attention
A glass of water half-empty;
Sheets unclean as the night before.
I have never been so lost before
Reality falling through my fingertips –
I upturn my palms, empty
Handed, bruises all that belongs to me
Like a call to attention
Roughness not cushioned by the mattress
No-one becomes familiar with this mattress
Those who have visited before
Leave a note; one unworthy of attention
They form prose under my fingertips
But are meaningless to me:
No half-formed sentence could make me less empty.
I was not always so empty
I was, like the springs of this mattress
Barely fit for purpose: me,
Noisy and unyielding, but in working order. This was before –
Now, I am numb to my own fingertips
Unfulfilled by my own attention
I wince under its focus. My attention,
A torch for all my failings – empty
As the spaces between my fingertips.
I want to come alive, leave this mattress
Exist outside the window that I stand before --
But the sunlight, she suffocates me.
A spotlight, she shines upon me –
An actress, a demand for your attention.
Yet, all those who I have loved before
Took my love and left me empty.
So I bed down into the mattress,
Cradle its edge with my fingertips.
A vow; I am enough, I need not be empty --
I deserve my own attention, not those whose pit-stop I call my mattress.
I will love my own fingertips with the love I have lost before