i am too sweetly suffocating,
because a girl across the way
has made herself too pretty to be ignored.
an open mouth is an ocean to swim in,
but i cannot keep myself afloat against
the impending crash of wordless waves;
frail confessions staining nervous teeth,
neither she nor i will say it,
but we both know.

i share with her a hello in the morning,
not far from my mind when once i shared
the touch of spine with a car seat’s leather,
a hot hot heat bleeding into my body from hers.
it’s not lust, and it’s not love,
it’s just one day of swallowing each other whole.
i take her breath in, belly pulling into me
when her fingers find my flesh.
i am trying to make myself small
so she can engulf me.
there’s stars caught between her teeth,
and when her mouth matches mine,
they spark.
my tongue burns with the supernova taste
she leaves when she pulls away.

and it’s not love,
but i still today cannot resist the want
to be the only name that bleeds out her lips
when someone’s touch drags her back from the dead.

“madness is what i have instead of heaven.”
she is both of these things
late at night —
stars crack and crumble on the memory of her tongue,
and i can’t breathe anything but her oxygen.
if i could
just one more time
have her slide into my bones,
gladly would i let my skin unfurl into ribbons.

i’d let her torture me into submission,
her eyes half-lidded, shut
with the mold of lust,
and her tongue absorbed with my taste,
hands capturing my freckles between her fingers.
maybe her legs will quake under the weight of my promise,
thighs flushed as pink as my cheeks
as the white-hot pierce of passion
overwhelms.
i grossly still so want
the tremble of my name spilling on her mouth —
a prayer i can answer without words.

and it’s not love,
but i almost wish it was.