I imagine parting your lips would feel like dipping my hands into a bag of uncooked rice,
starchy sweet,
falling between my fingers, yielding.

I imagine you holding my papercut wrists, my papercut heart together with trembly hands, scotch tape and just enough pressure to fill up the spaces,
just for a little while.

Baby girl, you’d say, when I’d consider asking you to help me pick up the pieces.
Carrying them carefully, like a bird’s egg,
like the day no backward glances were cast,
eyes set, head set, a measured pace.

Stop it, baby girl, as I held my breath, waiting for the pieces to drop again,
tiny cracks multiplying into a pattern like the afghan at the foot of my bed,
the way my hands splintered when you held them in yours.

Listen: imagine the landscapes that fill our bodies--
the curves where I would nestle my head,
the warm folds where I’d hide,
the sinkholes and leaks you’d try to patch up, to stop up.

Listen to me, baby girl.
Your elbows are too sharp,
like the point of blades that fit so snugly into your hand—
that feel like they were once part of you, but left;
no backward glances cast.

Imagine this, baby girl:
let me file them down,
I like it when you’re soft,
like me.
Then it doesn’t feel like you’ll shatter when I touch you—
Listen,
just fold up, baby girl.