caution:
please don’t tell me I’m beautiful
because when you leave I will let the tracks of my tears stain my face for so long they will bear holes in my cheeks
and I will sit in front of a mirror and draw on it with lipstick all the features you loved but I now loathe
please don’t tell me you get lost in my eyes
because then I will have to dig them slowly out of their sockets and throw them in the ocean so I don’t drown in them
don’t tell me you love kissing every inch of my body
for then I will have to place an X on every space until I am covered in marks and no one else may ever kiss me where your lips touched that X
please don’t hold me too tightly
for when you’re gone I might have to wrap tape around all my limbs to remember what it felt like to not fall apart
don’t cook for me
even if it’s my favourite: grilled cheese
because when you disappear so will my appetite and my palette
don’t tell me you love my new tattoo because instead of a heartbeat I’ll see your name next to my heart;
the sharp and blunt sound of it causing irregularity in my rhythm
don’t tell me you dream of me
because when you’ve left I will try and sleep forever so maybe I can find you on a school bus or an amusement park in my dreams;
you’ll become a monkey
- mon petit singe -
don’t send me pictures of your face in a content expression
because it is tattooed on my brain and when you choose to go it will be a slideshow of your face gliding its way in front of my eyes
I wish you wouldn’t tell me you want me
because as soon as you said that
I wrote letters with all my stories and sent them floating to you on the lake you go to every night
and I documented my face in all of its varying emotions to assure you that sometimes you may not “want me”
and I called you – long distance;
the space stretched over miles –
while you were watching planes land
and with every word I said I felt like I was nosediving on that plane
I’m stretching my arm so far I can feel my bone separating from my muscle,
expanding across the distance to touch yours
even if I only feel your fingertips
I want to graze them;
feel the spark,
because when we met that spark was dancing around us,
taunting us, breathing us in, zipping past our faces
and I thought you wouldn’t kiss me
I thought maybe your face wouldn’t mould against mine
and I was foolish to think that this was what I had dreamt of
but you asked to kiss me
and when you did the reverb made me lose all thoughts;
I was emancipated from thinking
-- from thinking --
but caution:
please beware,
if you place a thought into my mind it grows roots and sprouts and branches and the leaves drift to the base of my skull
and I am filled with them:
you coming to me
you staying with me
you holding me
the branches grow stronger,
critters stay in there from the past
the birds carry the old memories and sit dangling on the tree,
bearing them;
new and old,
beware my thoughts
caution: do not read
but although I place this disclaimer,
I want you to rake the leaves and climb the branches
and water the roots
and sit by the trunk
and read the book of my thoughts
to absorb all my information, acknowledgments and table of contents
don’t flip through:
read
but beware:
do not plagiarize them to say to another
and don’t copy them word for word
and please don’t highlight them
my leaves are falling around you
smell the bark
and breathe me in.