All the cuts and the scrapes,
The bumps and the crashes where our hip bones multiply and divide the line between our movement,
All the hair held clasped in slippery fingers,
Pulled back,
Lips tipped pink towards the ceiling,
Balance reeling,
All the floating rhythms that have penetrated our fantasy,
Compensated for our feelings.

It wasn't enough.

Not that the body,
The face,
Or the soul,
The hair or the lashes,
The mind or the skin.
No, you said it wan't that,
Never more than a remorseful fact.
Only for the broken conscience,
The loves that existed forever apart,
Could then both twist together in heart.

But then you said...
No.

And I looked down at my hands and I saw the callouses,
The etched pattern of pent up emotion that I spent so much time carving with a rusty bullet,
And my ears believed you,
But my mind did not.
All the pretend kisses that tempted my cheeks and pulled at my ripcords,
Turned on my motor,
Flipped on my switch,
They sank into the mud,
And the hands that brushed my  forehead to wipe away the sweat began to fall to pieces and smash against the tiled floor of the bathroom where you first said you loved me
With that voice of yours,
That god awfully beautiful voice,
Where you first put that red lipstick on and bound your mind with a halo of
Lust
Just so you could summon the courage to stand up there in front of those people and let them eat your words with their ears.
And all I wanted to do was eat your lips with my eyes.
I was so close,
I could taste the perfume on your neck
And I couldn't take it anymore, so I reached out to touch

But...
Then you said no.

And all the times I said that I was there,
When I really wasn't,
When I took off my jacket and the steam rose off my skin to wrap your arms in ghostly tendrils,
When I took that blade and let my blood just so when you'd crashed too hard and burned too much you could keep your mouth from
Cracking
And
Falling apart.
I thought I did what I was supposed to do,

And still you said...
No.

But it wasn't you, was it?