let’s play truth or dare.
so we can mouth a hundred hymns at each other then remember
that we
are the only things we believe in.
i want to whisper in your ear
say how i think
that the first person made a thousand sounds and called them gods
and named them all after you.
nobody has ever been so beginning.

tell me back.
how you love the ash you find in between the pages of my favourite books,
i want to know that i’m here, cigarette burns and all.
i know we are both missing and that’s okay because nothing is whole.

have you ever wanted to become a straight line?
have you ever wanted to learn every single freckle?
name them with your teeth?
taste them under your tongue?
i have never been more silhouette, more oil on water,
more ‘please don’t leave’.

i have tasted your smoke under my tongue.
i have wanted to turn myself into a whisper,
i have breathed your name at the back of my throat.

i tell you
a girl is a safe place you can make yourself to shake in.
a body is something you can grow into,
or out of.
when the door is closed and you say that you’re home,
i hope you know what that means.
i hope you hold that weight to your chest.

i say ”i hope you come back soon.”
she says “ring me when you’re home safe.”