sometimes my mouth forgets how to form words of honesty
i look at the boy and i say
i do not need his love
and what i mean is
the strand of his hair that is perpetually out of place
feels as significant as a misplaced set of car keys
i think about the boy and say to myself
you are okay with being alone
i am okay with being alone
and what i mean is
i would channel all of the breath in my lungs for a moment of being held like i was something meaningful to another person
like the warmth of my blood was somehow tangible outside the thin tissues of my own skin
sometimes i wonder if my body will go on strike
lose form altogether at the lack of contact
become ambiguous out of lonely
but my lips curve into a smile when i ask how his day was
and they forget to reverberate back into place once he loses interest

on certain days
i feel the rain swallow me whole
wet blades of grass in my sneaker
laugh at each step that i take in the wrong direction
i'm 17, and i spend a lot of time thinking about his spine
how his voice sounds deeper
when i hear it in my sleep
which is to say
that things still manage to morph themselves beyond recognition
even when they aren't real
i'm 17
and i love poetry
because it allows me to narrate
things
even when they aren't real
like
it is through the graces of some god
that my shoulder blades still sit parallel to the ground beneath me
as if to say
you
are real
even when not pressed under the weight of his advances
even when you lay
in the stomach
of the rain

that day, i stared directly into the eclipse
felt it burn and melt the celluloid of my retina
but what else is a romantic to do?
your ex-lovers could fill a room
and one touch from you is enough to intoxicate my blood and bone
for weeks
i really wish you had kissed me
that night
with my hands smelling like gravel
and your teeth looking painted with promise
a tiny militia
last line of defense
and the night could have swallowed us whole
and i wouldn't have noticed
why didn't you?
my throat was preoccupied by your space
hands waiting like ships in the harbor
i'll be ****** if you didn't hear my wanting
reverberating around my ribcage
i could've eaten you alive in that moment
then
but today
i stare into the eclipse
let it blind me

it's in the moments between dusk and dawn that you realize
you love him
twilight dissipates, and the silence becomes just another safety blanket to get you
through the day
it's as if your truth was perishable
like another cheaply bought fruit from the corner store you frequented as a child
but as the night grew more embracing
you found yourself renewed again
excited by the revelations
as if God himself would be envious
of the clarity with which your pillow spoke of
truth