I catch a glimpse of skin,
Smooth and untouched,
As her shirt rides up
Revealing an expanse of milky surface
And I get an itch to bite it, mark it,
Watch red blossom up and out
Spreading underneath the layer.


I avert my gaze when she speaks,
Tune out the noise,
As my mind wanders back , imagining
A kiss upon the reddened patch
On her hipbone, the contrast
Sharp and painful
Enough to draw out a hiss


Only to transform into a sigh,
At the caress of my tongue,
Shy strokes tracing
The imprint left by my teeth:
A possessive act, marking
My territory.


The shimmer beneath your gaze,
As I return from my fool's paradise
Makes me wonder if you know,
And I wait
For you call me on it,
To reach out, or
Turn away in disgust.


But you don't,
And I am left
Disappointed, suspended,
Still waiting

He is just tall enough to make me feel like a giant by the way he cranes his neck to look at me

His hands are too small for the camera he is holding

No one notices as he takes pictures of them

While they look at pictures on the walls

I ask him if I am on his camera

And he asks me to sit so he can show me

“Start at the beginning,” I say

There are no pictures of the actual work in any of his photographs

These are 14 megapixel close-ups

Of faces you thought you only made when you were alone

And I don’t want to see myself anymore

But I don’t stop him

These paintings might as well be mirrors

They might as well be

Crystal clear soul windows daring us to stare

a moment longer

The faces we make into them are response enough

To what we see inside

I already know what I see inside

It’s like listening to your own voice on a tape recorder

You can hear how ugly your voice is

Even though

everyone else tells you

“You sound like yourself”

Looking at these pictures is like walking in on your parents having ***

I know I am not supposed to be here

And after about 30 pictures we get to mine

These are 14 megapixels worth of tears drying on my cheeks

Suddenly I wish this museum was on fire

And the beams above us would come crashing down and bury us

I wonder why a little boy felt the need to photograph my soul

And I hate him for it

I hate his smile

And his eyes that have not yet seen enough

And his heart

Beating like a hesitant breeze

Warning us of winter

He must see all this on my face

Because he takes another picture

Then runs to his father almost tripping over the camera

Which hangs from a lanyard

Wrapped around his tiny wrist

I get up and leave

I avoid my own reflection in windows as I walk back to my car

I never again want to see what I feel like

And I will spend the rest of my life knowing

That somewhere

There is a little boy with a camera

That holds a picture of me

While I am crying

legs stick-straight
my hips don't gyrate
my hair's not well-trained
and my ******* aren't the same
size

my eyes
aren't bambi-watching-his-mother-get-strapped-to-the-back-of-a-van-BIG
they're not blue like the atlantic, but grey like
cigarette ashes.

my eye-lashes aren't a foot in length,
they don't billow when I blink
and I've lost so many, a ton,
ones that I didn't even
get to
wish
on.

if I could, I would draw the back of every
time she turned away from me - her hair and how it met the base of the skull and repelled
downward or climbed back up, she'd cut it short and then
watch it grow,            

if I could, I would re-trace her ears and marvel at how the skin joined in perfect harmony behind them. if I could, I would have had her a million times more in between my fingers, running them through her - everyevery I have
and had and
will have.

Sometimes I feel as if
cigarette butts are
bread crumbs
for grown ups.

you have a downward symmetry about you, your mouth rests a bit too deep in your
chin, so to speak, you
speak in skinlight   my eyes slow to
capture all of you at once, b eaut  iful

honey, you
could speak in deep tones, rich and creamy
hard to swallow but   just
another
bite

and yet your words bubbleout like brave
little warriors - they emerge in such
formation and
present themselves
, not to
question