i. i am lying beside you and i am looking at the skin on your face. i can see the air escape your mouth. soon it will be home to my lips, and they will caress yours with softness i never before possessed.

ii. life is not worth living if i am not beautiful.

iii. i am in an unfamiliar place. i am lying in a stranger’s bed. hands that i don’t recognise are turning my skin to ashes. i watch as my thighs burn. i am grieving for the dead ocean now occupying my eyes.

iv. i lift up the hem of my skirt, hoping you would see the dark starbursts printed on the skin on my thighs.

v. i have seen you without clothes but you have seen me without skin.

vi. he takes my skin and plants baby’s breaths on me, but they leave incisions in my heart. i am shaking now. i am in a shaking hell.

vii. i scoop up all your promises while you spill them onto another’s skin. i pick lies from the insides of your pockets. i clean dried blood from the corner of your mouth.

viii. my vein is tied carefully around your finger. it takes two minutes to **** the knot, and then me.