Sep 2015
The pull is strong and I feel it inside with every breath I take.
I press the tips of my fingers on my face. It’s marked with small dimple-like scars. My cheeks are flushed and the pink covers them in the dim light.
I am of the North and the East. I hold my own gaze. I buy my own groceries. I drink a lot of water.
And I only find rest at dawn. Only when I allow the quiet in. Only when I stop thinking of the sea, or the warships in the marina, or the crunching of the fresh snow beneath my feet. Glistening white in the afternoon, just like it was when I buried my gloves beneath a tree and got frost bite by the evening.
In the morning I throw my blankets off. I leave the heat off. Rejecting the warmth helps me grasp to myself more as I would need to do say through the day time any way. I cherish the feel of the cold linoleum and the dust gathering on tiles above the sink.
And then I look again upon my face and at my eyes and then my dry lips. Finger pads brush them too.
My blood smells of sand and my muscles ache each night with pain. Each vertebrae screams for her embrace, the palms of her hands to brush each shoulder blade in a passing remark. Through the early morning I let her pull me into the water and tell me that she’s near, no matter what. Eyes the color of sky.
My grandmother’s eyes are the color of the frigid ocean in the early spring sun. My mother’s are that of the amber wheat that grows by the train tracks.
I imagine that’s what the end tastes like. Where the universe waves goodbye.
And as I step into the shallows,
I run screaming.
Back into the woods. Into the shadows of the birch. Past the towering elms.
Rotted branches, to Marsh, to Grass, to Dust. To the dry, dry, Earth. Where his palms are rough and gentle.
Where he asks me to dance atop the salt flats. Flooded with burgundy wine. The cracks and scratches of our soles covered by the smell of alcohol and the reflection of the stars on our bruised and ****** feet. I see him at night, with age rolling over the lines by the corners of his eyes with such grace. Such talent. Such a distant pleasure.
Just as on the balcony. With imported cigarettes and glimmering lights surrounding us, I wish to push the East over the balcony. I wish it would forget me like the North.
The fragile North. So tender and passive, so cold and absent. Like the passing of a parent, or the peripheral of the friend.
I wish to be drowned in the turquoise eyes of the South
and in the scalding wine scented haze of the West.
I am of the blizzard and of the heat that dries out your throat in a matter of seconds. I live on commercial carpet and on ivory walls of the hospital doors.
When the cicadas find their voices, when the water laps at my feet like the sweat that trickles down my bare chest and my pink cheeks,
when my burgundy stained lips touch the cracked skin of your scarred dimples,
when my nails claw at your navy shirt, begging you to not let go.
That is when you can cut off my fingers,
so I may be touched by you instead.
Bathe me in hot water and hold me close.
I press the tips of my fingers on my face. It’s marked with small dimple-like scars. My cheeks are flushed and the pink covers them in the dim light.
I am of the North and the East. I hold my own gaze. I buy my own groceries. I drink a lot of water.
And I only find rest at dawn. Only when I allow the quiet in. Only when I stop thinking of the sea, or the warships in the marina, or the crunching of the fresh snow beneath my feet. Glistening white in the afternoon, just like it was when I buried my gloves beneath a tree and got frost bite by the evening.
In the morning I throw my blankets off. I leave the heat off. Rejecting the warmth helps me grasp to myself more as I would need to do say through the day time any way. I cherish the feel of the cold linoleum and the dust gathering on tiles above the sink.
And then I look again upon my face and at my eyes and then my dry lips. Finger pads brush them too.
My blood smells of sand and my muscles ache each night with pain. Each vertebrae screams for her embrace, the palms of her hands to brush each shoulder blade in a passing remark. Through the early morning I let her pull me into the water and tell me that she’s near, no matter what. Eyes the color of sky.
My grandmother’s eyes are the color of the frigid ocean in the early spring sun. My mother’s are that of the amber wheat that grows by the train tracks.
I imagine that’s what the end tastes like. Where the universe waves goodbye.
And as I step into the shallows,
I run screaming.
Back into the woods. Into the shadows of the birch. Past the towering elms.
Rotted branches, to Marsh, to Grass, to Dust. To the dry, dry, Earth. Where his palms are rough and gentle.
Where he asks me to dance atop the salt flats. Flooded with burgundy wine. The cracks and scratches of our soles covered by the smell of alcohol and the reflection of the stars on our bruised and ****** feet. I see him at night, with age rolling over the lines by the corners of his eyes with such grace. Such talent. Such a distant pleasure.
Just as on the balcony. With imported cigarettes and glimmering lights surrounding us, I wish to push the East over the balcony. I wish it would forget me like the North.
The fragile North. So tender and passive, so cold and absent. Like the passing of a parent, or the peripheral of the friend.
I wish to be drowned in the turquoise eyes of the South
and in the scalding wine scented haze of the West.
I am of the blizzard and of the heat that dries out your throat in a matter of seconds. I live on commercial carpet and on ivory walls of the hospital doors.
When the cicadas find their voices, when the water laps at my feet like the sweat that trickles down my bare chest and my pink cheeks,
when my burgundy stained lips touch the cracked skin of your scarred dimples,
when my nails claw at your navy shirt, begging you to not let go.
That is when you can cut off my fingers,
so I may be touched by you instead.
Bathe me in hot water and hold me close.
