my first love
i fell in love with being loved.

now i am searching for a love
such that i can fall in love with loving another.

i used to spend hours in the shower
as i child, playing out
make believe wonders 'til my fingers
were prune-y and the water turned to ice.

now my adult mind is a constant blur
of to-do's, and tick-tock's, and
never being satisfied with the amount of
time in a day and is there ever
enough of it left to just
soak.

today in the bath, i loosened my mental grip
and leaned into the grooves
of a younger brain as i stared
at my ***** hair

pulling it towards the sky
and in the place of coarse keratin
rose a tiny forest, on a tiny island,
with two, looming mountains
emerging out of the sea beyond.

i rose to a seat and embraced my
knees as my shins turned into
textured tree trunks.

the water still draining from around my ankles,
rinsing off the day, rinsing off the clock, i took special
care to give every part of me affection and attention,

i tickled my armpits and my *******,
kneaded in between my thighs,
hugged my shoulder blades.

and as i bent over to clean in between my toes,
i wondered how many people take the time
to wash their feet in the shower.

at age 8 i stopped wearing jeans because they were uncomfortable.

at age 14 i wore high heels, fish nets, and skirts to school and a man once asked my mother if she really let me leave the house looking like that.
i also wore checkered pajama pants and shirts with holes in them to class, i dressed up and down because everyone else seemed to dress in the middle.
i dressed however i wanted to because my mother told that guy to shut the **** up and mind his own business.

at age 16 i wore crop tops the size of sports bras and pants so tight i understood why they called them skin-ny jeans
my **** and *** would be flying all over the place,
but people with larger **** and larger bellies, people like me, weren't supposed to be wearing those sorts of things so i thought i must.
or so i thought.

at age 18 i started dressing in oversized shirts and formless dresses
i didn't believe my body needed to be objectified and put on display anymore,
i didn't need to prove that my waistline was small enough,
i didn't need to wear the spanx i wore every day at 16.

at age 20 i stopped wearing make up or a bra,
my **** sagged and eyes bagged but i wanted to show people that ***** aren't always perky even on twenty year olds.
i also stopped shaving my armpits
i thought they were cute.

at age 22 i stopped shaving my legs.
i didn't think they were cute.
but i realized not every decision i made about how i presented myself needed to be in order to make myself more beautiful.

and at age 24 i shaved my head.

a man once asked me,
as he looked at my college ring wrapping itself around my pointer finger,
if i always did things differently just to be different?
and if id always be doing things just because someone told me not to?

i should have looked at him and asked him
what has he ever been told he cannot do?

i thought if i acted disinterested enough you would notice
but you didnt
and you kept kissing and caressing until i told myself that *** would make me forget how unhappy i was because *** has always been the strongest part of our relationship

but it doesnt help anymore
it doesnt make me forget

ive been so wrapped up in who is right and who is wrong.
i try to place blame for why things arent working out because it would be easier if it was your fault
because it would be easier if it was my fault
and i still can't remember who started the last fight

and i dont want you to hurt
and i want you to have comfort
but i dont think either of us are providing anything but warmth
as we both curl up on opposite sides of the bed
isolated in our individual sadness
until our half sleep oblivion momentarily makes us forget why we were fighting
and we hold each other close
until the sun makes us remember

and so i cry because im mourning our relationship thats still slowly dying
and i cry because i shouldnt be this sad in a relationship
and i cry because im crying on some random porch steps down the street from your place because i dont want to come home to you.
and i cry and i cry
and in the pauses when im not crying over you, i cry over myself

and i feel so unloved
and then i worry you must feel unloved
and i wonder if we are just both too wrapped up in our own issues that weve forgotten how to care about each other

and im sorry i was cold
and im sorry i was mad
and im sorry the only way ive been able to deal with our relationship is dissociating
and im sorry i couldnt love you more

and when you are gone i still miss you
miss your arms around me
and even when we are together

i still miss you

and so i must let you go.

as i sit staring at the trees flit by, i leave
my head, no longer living in my sunken
sockets, descending deep down into the depths of my womb, stretching into my twitching ****.

every rumbly tumble of the ten ton
vehicle vrooming down the turnpike
outlines the echos of his hands.

the echos of them in the negative space between
my thighs that exists only in my mind as they
intimately embrace each other against the bus seat.
the echos of them still filling me making me feel
fantastically full and yet frighteningly empty.

i feel firmly on the fence between ****** and
arousal, every pothole filling my holes and
lurching me
towards ******, every
soft vibrational hum of
asphalt
against my asscheeks, pulling me back to my pleasurable perch.

i have reduced myself to merely a
warm,
wiggly wash of titillation, teetering in between
temptation and utter satisfaction.

i close my lids slightly and breathe in the
absence of his presence,
as if ive been staring at a dazzling light too long left only
with its dark twin in its vacancy.

the separation stretches speeding down highways, so i must
wait,
wet and wistful, to be bathed and
blinded by the brightness once again.

i need you to go
so that i may miss you

auto pilot kisses
caresses out of habit

if only i could open my lips and close my legs
speak and not moan
words not whimpers

need to be alone, need to think, need to feel
can i still feel

so much to say but nothing
if my lips are on yours
if my throat is around your ****

fill the hole in my head
the hole of my ****
the hole that is my heart

rub away at my **** and through my self-imposed numbness

**** my words and my thoughts  
down my throat until they disappear

but they wont

will i