Let me write you into a fantasy,
spin your fingertips through a maze,
weaving the freckles on your arms into
the things that you crave.
The frustration will shatter
like the plates you have always secretly wanted strewed
across the kitchen floor.
Glass dust rests
in the creases and,
though you warned me to wear shoes,
remain endlessly embedded in my heels.
I will lift up my legs and let you see,
to try to catch a glimpse of your own reflection,
the sparkle past your eyes that match the glint
of glass in my skin.
“See?” I would say,
arms tight around your chest, eyes
clenched shut buried
in the damp nape
of your neck.

Let me become your time vessel.
Rewind, two years,
you are still you and I am still me,
pressed up against the corner
of one of your kitchen counters.
Your ghost whisper lingers
in my ear,
“You’re giving me goose bumps.”
I will bring you through time,
jumping moment
to moment,
a rush of feeling settling in
the pit of your stomach.
You are blindsided,
tangled in the clutches of each second wasted
and ignited into gray ash.
When I am your time vessel, those seconds will be collected
and stored, so you can replay them over
and over and eventually
you will understand
the implications,
you will find the meaning,
you will learn to be happy again.

Let me count your bruises.
Red-faced and breathless,
you push the world away
only to fall back into the carpet again.
Each exhale jagged but controlled,
a bead of sweat forming like tears
against your wrinkled forehead.
An instant clouded by exertion, hearing nothing but
the sharp intake of breath.
I will lie next to you with my hair
above me, hands cupping ears.
And as you lift
your shoulders
off the ground, I will count for you.