Sometimes I peek through the cracks of myself and I see a future that scares me.
I see myself in the beds
Of cellophane angels.
Kissing their full lips and delicate collarbones
And seeing the rumpled sheets straight through their backs.
Chosen because their eyes have the same slant
Or perhaps they use the same little words, sometimes,
Or maybe they have a few of the same mannerisms and ways of moving
As the person I really love.
And so I feed that part of them,
Justify myself by warning them
Not to love me.
I let them take what they can of what is there-
Let them think that's all there could be-
And I love a ghost that lives inside them.
And slowly they adore me-
For even the meagerest slice of my love seems complete-
And slowly I become too steeped in guilt to stick around,
And so it goes.
Beautiful people leached black and white by a riptide love,
So passionate it steals substance from all the world
Save one girl, always out of reach.
And so it goes.
Bed after bed, and the sheets are what I see
Through their cellophane backs,
Hands human but transparent,
Hearts beating but distant,
And I love their every diaphanous curve,
With lips and murmurs and fingertips,
But as I lay in glass-like arms
A face flashes before my eyes just as they close.
Her face,
The staggering beauty and rich color and total vibrance of it.
And I feel suddenly like cellophane,
Too.