Sticky sweet memories
cling to the side
of my mason jar mind

Like blackberry jam.

Berries plucked
and kisses stolen
beneath a sultry summer sky.

Nothing but sweat and
white teeth and
purple stained finger tips.

But now it's cold--
too cold
for blackberries.

I spread what's left
of the jam
on some dry toast

And savor the taste.

I’ve reached a roadblock
in this punch-drunk--

The exhilarated semblance
of warm-color happiness
is peeled back
like the layers of an onion
to reveal raw, pungent inexperience
sincere in frankness,
yet clumsy in approach

The blurred lines of
tender affection
and pious adulation--

The muddy waters of
passionate attachment
and fiery dominion--

A foolish game
for a foolish girl.

I am flesh
weak and bruised.
I am blood
dark and damning.
I am bone
rigid and cold.
I am flesh
soft and smooth.
I am blood
warm and teeming.
I am bone
strong and resilient.
I am flesh
and blood
and bone.
It is all I can be.
And it has to be enough.

Bated breath;
dry lips parted
attached
to tense limbs
and
cold feet stamped
on wet pavement.

waiting on words
to flow
from a swollen tongue
thick
with empty promises.

red eyes watch
with a façade of
jaded apathy
given away only
by dry lips,
tense limbs,
and cold feet.

paint your mouth red.
float this tender highway.
at night your body bleeds
rivulets of sugar.

but darling, by day
your throat is swollen,
your knees are bruised,
your tongue is bloated and raw.
you are left open, a door.

yesterday you were a child,
your stomach was clean.
now, you are seeping, sticky,
with false moons in your
perforated ribcage.

you are hanging
by their fingertips,
hollow, pink, and
buried by morning.

I grow up
but you don't
Etched in a memory
Laughing
Bereft of ego
and adult responsibilities

I grow old
but you don't
Stuck in the amber
of a yesteryear
Forever fourteen
White teeth and sweaty palms

I grow hard
but you don't
Frozen by a lens
Smiling
Nothing but sunshine
Behind bright, brown eyes