place your hands on either side of my ribs
and feel my
pinky-stretched muscles
twist and grind with the earth’s orbits

tap your finger on my temple
and listen to the
bones hollowed-out
by termites that run on memories

hold my wrists above my head
and look at
the stretched skin of my stomach
so translucent
you can see the treasure map I etched all over me

these bodies are sponges
absorbing the wind
into our hips
and sprawling our fingers to try and
catch the air and stick it back into our lungs
muscling through the salty waves
that stain our cheeks a raw pink
and erode our invincible confidence
and chip our pearly smile

we grab for our surroundings
with a dying necessity
and sew them into ourselves
so that we are patched into an identity

so when we are tired of being ragdolls
pieced together by our triumphs and failures
we begin to choose any fabric
regardless of the color, shape, or size
just to cover the holes we have created

then we face the mirror to see our what is left

we are disappointed not by our own mouths
but the ones on the faces behind us
looking past their own holes and into our own

where you can see
the taught fibers of stretched muscles
the tunnels termites have created in ivory bones
and pale skin pulled tight around panting lungs.