I feel you like slamming doors. I see you in the same shifting focus as when I take off my glasses too quick. I hold you like I make fifty dollars a week. "I miss you" I scream into my pillow. "I miss you too" you whisper back in prayers in dreams in your arms wrapped around me as I cry into your neck.
I want you here: you tell me: I'm beautiful. these slow steps that I'm taking (toward you) (away from you) I'm learning your name easier than cleaning a fish bowl harder than saying it out loud easier than writing it down harder than taking birth control or wanting to, because I'm not interested in *** at this age: in this age I'm younger than those actions older than those thoughts, lost in a limbo, found swinging from a bar, skipping down a street, turning down what I can't see "no thank you"
I can hear you. "I'm listening" I can't hear you. "you're screaming"
your face, in the mirror: "you're beautiful" your face, in the street: "I'm disgusting"
sincerely, because I know you're quiet when you're unhappy because you're trying to tie knots with broken fingers because your eyes reflect blue in the shadows of your smile because you're more than any fabric, soaked in any chemical thought (or feeling) because the islands of you create an escape better than the moon.