i can tell that you wish i was softer,
i want to make myself more docile. i want to
pry my fingernails off for you, offer them to you as a libation,
let the auditory hallucinations do their job.
although small you’re a god nonetheless,
speaking in tongues i will never understand,
drinking flat soda because the smoke has clawed holes in your trachea and the fizz burns just a bit too much for your vessel to handle.
you take care of this body like you take care of mine,
alive;
floating, and
     in all the dimensions,
counting quarters in the back of the car.
     you are my god, and i am your fowl.
i swallow pennies, let the copper taste
     fill me up and choke me and
crawl up my spine.
     mold me like clay.

i see myself in you and it hurts.
you are heavy on me, collapsing my sternum and by kissing my chest with your fist and
it makes me remember what love is. love
is broken glass and love is warm and reminiscent and
love is something you would like to forget and something you will always remember.
i feel it coming out of my pores;
oozing, memories of you on brittanys floor,
memories of me retching inside my bathtub and
memories of you smiling down at me;
i think of your tongue and how it can be so soft and yet so sharp sometimes and your hands that can be so smooth and yet so rough and
it embeds itself into my skull like a scalpel, medical grade and shimmering like your lopsided grin,
the doctors say ill never get this out of me.
(i wouldnt want to anyway.)

you stand, all slack-jawed and purring like an ******,
pressing down on my cavities like a gas mask. this is my fantasy, this is me and i am dangerously ill.
i am sick, so
terribly, awfully sick,
as frail and withered as a stillborn and
heaving and choking up mothballs,
i can feel this illness in all of my orifices. leaking out like spit from my ears and
dripping on to your jeans,
all neat and tidy and squeaky clean like the smell of burning rubber.

i think i have shed myself of you.
for years i felt you stirring inside of me like a caged animal,
spitting on stale bread to make it soft again, hanging up your underwear with clothespins on my small intestine,
so innocent and sweet and painful like
how a cavity forms.
i sat slow and bleeding like a ball jointed doll,
i wanted to press my thoughts into your skin like thumbtacks.
i wanted to feel your breath on my skin just once,
just once,
maybe once again just to be sure of the smell im destined to avoid and i
will never, ever, never not ever ever let you hurt me again because
some things can’t be forgiven and
some things will always be forgotten
whether you have a choice in the matter or not

i promised you i wouldnt do this to you and i did.
i wait through crying. i watch you as your knees kiss my carpet ever so softly and i wait for the deafening sound of your hands against my ears to stop making them ring and i
wait for a break in your tears to mutter a backbitten apology before everything goes silent again.
through all of this my ghost remains sanguine and
he kisses my carcass with wanting and
i think of how i could never regret this,
not even if you lost your ****** job in the projects and
not even when you stop going to school or
stop pretending like you mean something to the world and
i think of his perfect smile and the way his hair falls into his eyes when he ***** me and i will never regret hurting you.
i promised you i wouldnt do this to you but i did.
i never meant to hurt you but i will do it again.

memories:
a half-drank bottle of *****. the taste of something foreign on my lips, soft and bittersweet like the fog in my brain. the realization that love is something you can never touch.
i can feel it on my fingertips like thimbles and glue, heavy and obstructive. weighted down with shower water and the scent of your shirt. i breathe it in. it tastes like ******.
i inhale hair pins. i take it all in, buzzing and whirring like an ******, all soft and fluttery between your thighs, i will never speak of this again.
i will carry this on my back until it breaks my collarbones.

there is blood here, all caked up in the sink drain and
washed clean off the walls.
i can tell from the marks my elders have left,
like cave paintings,
like murals,
like when children who don’t know any better splatter their finger paint kit all over daddy’s office walls but
what has been here cannot be wallpapered over.
i find comfort in the way that everyone’s hair smells the same here and i think, well, that’s just fine.

i remember sitting, next to her, on her basement floor. limbs numb and useless, pathetic. i looked her in the eyes.
“im done with the pills. really, this time. im done.”
i used to let her touch my thighs, so in return she answered me with translucent sincerity. the kind of honesty that wears masks.
“you’re just saying that because youre broke.”
this was before all those nights swaying under bathroom lights, clinging to the edges of the tiles on the floor and feeling the rot from in between the linoleum squares collect under my fingernails. i nodded in agreement, because she was right. she was always right, about everything. i learned to accept this and it soon became a comfort.
i remember apologizing. i remember always apologizing. i remember how she pressed her palms on the small of my back, giggling, “are my hands cold?” i shivered and recoiled, sorries spilling out like buttons for the sudden movement. “yes,” sorries spilling out like organs for the lie. your hands were never cold, i just never learned how to deal with the pressure. i still press on my bruises. i still can never get the hang of a temporary tattoo.
if i had the chance i would tell her i missed her. i would tell her how it took me almost ten years to get used to another pair of blue eyes, i would tell her i see her face everywhere. i would tell her how leo died and how ill see her brother soon, isn’t that crazy? isn’t it crazy how i haven’t seen john since you left me? i can see myself now, standing in front of her, skin glistening like vaseline. i see myself harrowed, cut open with glass, insulation spilling out of my guts just like her basement walls and speaking so softly you can barely hear,
“see? i can be soft too, i swear i can be soft too!”