there's a boy in my bed
who was not there before.
i left for a short while
and rushed back to find a rubber band
boy stretched from my headboard
to the foot of my bed.

i'm afraid that he will snap
or maybe i'm afraid i will
because i've been wrought so tight
my chest is collapsing in on itself
but the sight of the boy in my bed, well,
it loosens my strings.
(and rubber always bounces back.)

this rubber band boy has played
me before; he knows all the melodies
i will sing to him and he will croon back
and it is the duet i have always wanted:
the one where neither of us make a sound.

i let the boy in my bed stretch
his rubber band arms around me,
rub up and down my back
because i am wracked with sobs
because i am panicked and broken
because i am the scratched record

i can only play the first few lines
of the same song: 'wise men say
only fools rush in';
the rest of it flies over my head
and hits rubber.
so he finishes the song for me:
'i can't help falling in love with you.'
i can't help but think
that i would **** this boy senseless.
(i'd **** him up too, i always **** it up).

they call condoms 'rubbers' in North America but
that's wrong. (they're latex.)
they call erasers 'rubbers' in the UK. (correct.)
Our culture gap reflects us well.

I need, ache, to prevent mistakes from happening
but I have ******* myself over too often;
even latex cannot save me.
He is there when the mistakes are made,
over and over again,
rubbing them out until they're nothing but
shavings, little bits to be blown off the sheet,
cut out from the final piece.

i can only hope i prevent myself
from becoming the mistake
he must erase from himself.

if i never get to be the opera,
let me be a song,
a verse,
a single note.

perhaps he won't remember me at all,
just the bed he's stretched himself in.
maybe what i'll be in his composed works
is a well-placed
rest.