i don't feel safe
when my name is
inside someone else's mouth
i guess i spent so long
ripping my heart out
in thin red lines
and hiding them between your fingers
that the touch of unfamiliar
palms brings out the worst in me
i guess that's why i kissed the way i did
and cut my hair too many times
and cut other things
in the hopes i'd run dry
love, i guess that's the thing
i spent so much of the time i was
making myself
with you
that your fingerprints are all over
the hardened clay
and when people fit their
thumbs in the spaces you left
i find i don't like
being held in palms that don't
fit every groove and line
it feels uncertain and strange
just like the unfamiliar taste
of someone else in my mouth
it sours my smile into something tired
and i don't feel quite so new
i feel used and overcooked
like my limbs are stuck together
in the hopes that it'll replace
the feeling of you
i've learned the ways of kissing through
the haze of numb nausea
of smiling through the blinding
self-loathing
i've learned that love doesn't
thrive in my palms the way it did
when i'd touch you
i'm all tapped out
on ways to share myself
at least the parts that count
and lately i've been finding myself
in a position of everyone
wanting more of me
than i'm able to give
they just don't understand
i can't give them
what doesn't belong to me
i can't ask you
for all my pieces back
i don't want them
i want every hand that touches me
to know what they're getting
because most want
a whole human being
but i can't even give
half of me
so let them see
what you'v left of me
let them understand
that they can't have
a single piece





                                                                                        i won't give up
                                                                                        all of me