I shuffle and reshuffle,
the way my brother taught me last summer,
I lay my cards on our dining table in the east coast,
He lays his cards on a breakfast bar in the east coast.

Her peach kisses blossom
on his warm breath
she tastes like giggle martinis.
Between blue sky and sunshine
They kiss in the rain.
Most people think they're insane
but I think maybe they can change
Maybe she'll learn to love one place
Maybe he'll learn to love travelling
Maybe she'll forget he loves her best friend
Maybe he will too
Maybe the whole world will rewind till before they met
So they can meet for the first time tonight
And maybe fall in love
Maybe the whole world is rewinding so they can never meet at all.

I used to know a boy with a rose blooming across his chest
and the scars from its thorns scraped across his knuckles.
He's the kind of boy who always laughs with his whole heart,
he never just chuckles
Roses are his mother's favourite flower.
And though he doesn't believe in a heaven
just in case she looks down he wants her to see the she's still a part of his story
A story he can't help but write in his father's handwriting

When I meet this boy he is taping a needleful of black ink
and smiling like he swallowed my butterflies
but I don't mind,
they were his in the first place

He tells me he is an artist and asks if I want to be a canvas,
I don't know much about saying no yet so I offer him my left arm
because the right one's the one I write with and I'm not sure his ink is the right one to write with
but veins, veins don't work that way
the ink that goes in my shoulder flows through my heart and out my pen
and I end up here telling you a black ink story.

He draws a perfect heart on my shoulder,
I don't wonder why he can draw perfect hearts,
Instead  I let him write his name inside
and I decide to wear tank tops.
I forget artists like to sign their artwork,

so I think he wants me to be a sailor and I buy a boat.
But before I leave I take his hands and
I write my name across his palms
"This way they'll read me in your future" I say
Then I go sailing.

I travel across the world, swim in every ocean, meet every fish
But no matter how many salt water showers I take
No matter what colour the sun makes my skin
No matter how many Sirens I follow
His heart still beats coal black on my shoulder

1
So I decide to sail back to him.
I great him with open arms and he greets me with open palms.
Blank open palms.
My name has been rubbed away by the way her hands tuck perfectly into his on hot summer nights when everyone else has let go
I turn his hands over and see pieces of her where his father's scars are healing.
So I buy a long-sleeved shirt and I go sailing.

2
When I reach the shore
I great him with open arms and he greets me with open palms.
Blank open palms.
Desperately I take his hands and run my fingers across where my name should be
Concealer that matches another girls skin clings to my fingertips
My name peaks through the make-up
and I smile, I am still written in his scars

3
When I finally see him
I great him with open arms and he greets me with open palms
Open palms that call me home.

There is a boy with a scar on his arm
from the thorn of a rose.
A rose like the one he wants to ink
into the skin of his shoulder blades.
So that his mother can look through the clouds
and see that she helped write his story.

I take this boy's hand
and poise my pen on his palm.
He does not pull away
so I draw stars along the wrinkles
so he can read me in his future.

He takes my pen
and draws a heart on my shoulder,

so for a week I pretend I am a sailor.
I follow my ship wherever it takes me
and pretend that I am not afraid
because a sailor knows
her ship will always take her home.

And so when finally I arrive
I run to him.
Because all the saltwater in the world
has not washed away
the heart he drew on my shoulder.

But he pulls away,
to my outstretched arms he gives open palms.

And they are blank.

The stars I drew there have been rubbed away
by someone else's hands.

So I show him my shoulder
and the heart that he drew there
and the heart that he's breaking.

And he hangs his head
because though I am not written in his future,
he is forever written in my past.

He says he wants to be a doctor
a psychologist, I thought maybe
but "No, a doctor," he assures me.

He rests his scalpel in the hollow of my neck
his eyebrows are dog-eared
he slides the knife down along my breast bone
cutting through my tissue paper skin.

"Once more," he says "this time for the bone,"
I nod, of course.

He places the knife back at my throat,
and traces the first line, pressing through my breast bone.

He lies the scalpel by my head
and gently lifts my ribs open,
like french doors.

A sparrow sits in the open cage,
still too downy to fly it peers up at us.
The doctor gently cups the little bird
and lifts her from her bone cage.

He walks with her to the window
where a nest waits for her on the ledge.
Then he returns to me,
I watch curiously as he folds my ribs back together,
and sows me up with a vogue designer's finesse.

I look down at my chest,
he has embroidered morning glories
along the stitching.

I smile and say,
"Thank-you, Doctor."

I wait patiently,
carefully working on this puzzel.
You give me your life in pieces.
First chipped old edge pieces
all grey as the sky.
Then one purple with an orange stripe
it doesn't seem to fit anywhere.
Then none for a long time,
but sometimes I steal them

and my collection of pieces of you
becomes beautiful
but maybe because I put some to the side
in the picture that I'm trying to piece together
those ones would not fit

It's becoming harder and harder
to make that picture
because you force into my hands
pieces I wish were not yours
you make more and more of them
The puzzle grows into an ugly parody
of the picture I was making.

and the little pieces I cherish
are just moments
lost in years
spent far away from me

it's raining giggle martinis
between blue sky and sunshine
her peach kisses bloom
on his warm breath

You write your name in my heart,
I say I don't like you

You tell me I'm worth the time
but spend it with her

You ask me about him.
There's nothing to tell,
you've heard the joke before,
it looks like me.

Giggles escape between her fingers,
she breathes warm gold air,
and lets pink clouds melt on her tongue.

On a friday afternoon she paints her nails black
and they dry pink.
With her pretty pinky claw
she lines up her rainbow of skittles
and lives in each colour for a moment...

Red blooms on her favourite feather lenses

sweet Orange coats her tongue and teeth

warm gentle Yellow caresses her soft skin

fresh vibrant lively Green fills her lungs

dark seductive Blue vibrates in her ears

dangerous Violet spins her, her glasses fall

Black holds her tightly, she gives in.

On a saturday morning her black nails scratch
at the foreign bracelet on her wrist.
Squinting in the harsh light,
she gropes blindly for her
favourite sunglasses.