I have chapped lips, red skin, no bones, no blood.
Think of blood/think of hands. Think of hands/think of blood. Think of blood/think of hands/think of me, with a cigarette in between my teeth like the corpse of a puppet.
The two of us each smoke a cigarette for the first time on streets dark as the water that leaks from a body that has just fainted on a bathroom floor: There are times when I picture myself fainting on a bathroom floor, with a bit of blackish blood cornering from the tip of my mouth, me nauseous and vomiting. I’ve never told you this and I won’t now, even though it is night and I am lying in your bed once again, once again my stomach feeling too much like I have just ****** an ex.
A story about ******* my ex: once after we smoked we tried to **** on the carpeted floor of my father’s apartment, lots of sirens and taxis crowded outside. I didn’t have any collarbones, any hipbones, panic sweltered in the back of my throat like a cruel joke.
I am going to make mixed CDs for everybody I love.
I am going to let my hair down, I am going to forget to wear chapstick, or worse I’ll remember, but my lips will still be chapped. A lot of the time in my sleep I am asking you where my bones are. Or I am dreaming of old women, old women who are either grandmothers or witches or both – I can never figure it out. Neither can you, who are supposed to be so intelligent.
You are so exhausted, of everything, like a newborn. You have never had a beard. My mouth tastes like peanut butter. This is not a good thing, even though I like peanut butter. My mouth tastes nauseous. Don’t you dare kiss me. I am afraid to even kiss your cheek. You with tall bones and lanky spine and the eyes of somebody who should be sad.