Tonight, I spoke into the darkness,
No stars to light my way,
       The black void all encompassing

   My words drifting up in ribbons,
          I waited for something, anything to happen

              I felt a rumble that was akin to ripples emanating from a drop of water hitting a puddle

        I was small next to the impossible,
And when it spoke back, it changed me
      
        The blank canvas of stark black was pierced by blades of light,
    The sky becoming a shutter in a rain storm
           Blowing open and closed
       The words came and wrapped themselves across my body in its entirety
        Constricting my air flow

             I felt myself shatter
  An implosion of feeble glass
       Ricocheting through a skeleton of paper, reflecting the brightness above inside ripped skin

                I was nothing.
                I didn't exist.
                I floated in an incomprehensible place that had no end, no walls

     No ceiling or floor

            Just illumination in every direction

                    I opened my eyes
  
    And was blinded by an incredible radiance

      I shut my eyes tight and swatted in front of me
        My hand struck something metal and I yelped in pain
          
          I shot up and stared downward
    Towards the desklamp unplugged on the floor
        
          Breathing heavily, I sat upright in my bed,
                 *Struggling to pull away words that had already sunken in

i am aching and my tongue tastes like your
******* ignorance. like salt with *****,
i want to *****.
your fingers prodded me until i thought they reached my
spine.
take the pieces out, i have already lost the stability of my
own canvas.
you are a man with unshaken wrists,
who's legs known only how to walk away,
your speech like writing on pavements, never lasting for
too long.
once you had covered me head to toe with marks.
bruises. scratches. i had become the rag doll.
you threw while your lips shivered,
your hand on my throat no longer felt like
peace.
i cannot stop thinking of your fingers in me, searching for
a lie, or a truth, or a ******* resemblance.
nose breathing in the fumes of tears, sweat and mistakes.
for some seconds, i had believed your teeth wanted to chew out flowers,
not ******* thorns.
in the morning, your face, i no longer knew.

you had become the monster i had seen so many times before.
the monster who says i miss you yet can't
look at you in public spaces.
the monster who only calls you beautiful when your legs are wrapped
around him.

i have known this monster. time and time and time again.

I have been obsessed with staring at people’s ring fingers. I have been obsessed with seeing if there are rings, and if there are, why? And if there isn’t, why? I have been obsessed with the concept of marriage. Of babies. Of living together forever and ever with just one person.

The thought tastes like milk washed down with soap. But I cannot stop staring at people’s hands. I want to ask how they knew. Was there a switch that was flipped? Was there music loud and thudding in their ears? How did they know that when they’re old with wrinkles under their eyes they’ll still want to kiss the other’s lips?

I check off my lovers with a sharpie on my wrists. I wonder if any of them thought I was the one. The sharpie bleeds and stains my shirt. A man told me once he loved me within a month of knowing me. Was that true, never ending love? He left cigarette ash in my car and didn’t know where to put his fingers. He had wanted a house, a kid, a dog.

In coffee shops, in grocery stores, in hallways, I am staring at people’s fingers. Some are smudged, some are dry with peeling skin, some are softly pink, and when I see the golden or silver bands milky soap sits underneath my throat.

I am checking my wrists.

i've known the boys like him, the boys
with the gentle eyelashes and the
lip petals and spikes.
he touches my hair, twirls it in his fingers.
i am always nothing more to them.

i want to be earthquakes and avalanches,
yet i fold, becoming the beers in their guts, the ash
on their tongues.
but the way his tongue finds my pelvic bones,
how his calluses kiss my bruises.
his scent echoes inside my pillows,
denial like ***** bordering my throat thick.

the boys want my skin, to flay and wear it.
i am a prize, shiny and golden,
and he is licking my insides, my blood and guts.
like wine,
on his mouth, dripping down his chest.

i see how he stares at others,
calculating and timing,
but in the end i am the one, bent over, the one he says he loves.
(to ****).
and i wonder if this will always be this.
nights tasting like cider and ***,
knees scabbed and bleeding and scabbed and
bleeding.

he never touches me outside the bedroom, his
fingers glued to the bike handles.
i want to cut him open and see what's really inside.

Sunlight leaks through the leaves.
Silence sways upon the breeze.
Life swarms amongst the trees.  
You stand, not moving, afraid to speak.

we never talk about the ******* afterward.
it's hidden in the dust on my sheets, his liquids still fresh,
his cologne stamped on my pillowcases,

instead he asks about work, mentions his exhaustion,
doesn't bring up the marks he always leaves,
the one on my arm like a birthmark,
the small red ones on my back,

the ones on my hips like roses left out for too long

last night his fingers pressed on my throat and he kept asking how
i liked it. i was drunk, he was drunk and when he said he loved *******
me i almost thought he said
he loved
me.

in my room we spoke of what we always spoke of, books and PhD's,
of classmates, of futures, and interrupting our conversation his
lips found mine, in a hungry kind of way,

he never really liked to kiss.

it'll be two weeks until i see him again, perhaps longer,
and our talks will be briefer, and i am hoping my scratches are long
and violent on his back, i hope his skull is stinging from my
pulls.

we **** like we'll never **** again, and maybe i haven't had
this passion in a long while,
because i know he'll never be mine.

his fingers on my throat felt like freedom, and it's in those hours between
late night and early morning we are nothing but skin,
his fingers on my throat,
his fingers on my throat,
his fingers on my throat,

i'm choking on my spit