I search for fingerprints staining clear glass
Hair a shade beyond my own
I discover truths in these ribs of mine
And lies etched in my hands
Sometimes it’s fairly difficult to say what
You want to say
When the papers and proof
Are beneath your ribs
Things nail nor a good soul
Could dig out.
Sometimes you find that only certain people can dig it out
Not the ones unbuttoning your first layers
Not the filthy who want to be clean
It is especially not the boy who said he loved you
Months after you already put his name in your journal
In the room, you held his hand
On the roads, you ran to see him
In the kitchen, where you made cookies
In all the places you know, there is a stain of a boy
who stayed not long enough to make the tattoo
So on my skin, in my home, there is this fading ink
that has yet to bloom new skin.
He dug out my truths, and words he treated like scripture, like law
Yet he spends his days now in the absence of good fortune
Sin has forged in his lungs
I will never think of finding another heart with a pulse so
Or a hand with fingertips that squeeze my cuticles
Nor will I discover groans deep in my throat so faithful to the sob
Instead of sitting atop a pale dessert
observing the tumbleweed trot
I’ll meet all of the in-between lovers
Over a setting sun, on the beach
with their cars parked in the lot
While sipping grains of sand flavored lemon
With notes of grief and gaping hole
I’ll ask them, was leaving easy?
A soul-guarding question, no artist can clone
I’m so sorry, I’m still trying to dig these truths out of my ribs
Although they’re buried too deeply
That there is a rusting residue in my chest
I have opened the ribs of my heart much too long
to these lovers, grief and reverence combined
That these bones have rusted from the air
So much so that my lungs feel confined
Yet I still cannot breathe.
Nov 13, 2025
Nov 13, 2025 at 7:50 PM UTC
I search for fingerprints staining clear glass
Hair a shade beyond my own
I discover truths in these ribs of mine
And lies etched in my hands
Sometimes it’s fairly difficult to say what
You want to say
When the papers and proof
Are beneath your ribs
Things nail nor a good soul
Could dig out.
Sometimes you find that only certain people can dig it out
Not the ones unbuttoning your first layers
Not the filthy who want to be clean
It is especially not the boy who said he loved you
Months after you already put his name in your journal
In the room, you held his hand
On the roads, you ran to see him
In the kitchen, where you made cookies
In all the places you know, there is a stain of a boy
who stayed not long enough to make the tattoo
So on my skin, in my home, there is this fading ink
that has yet to bloom new skin.
He dug out my truths, and words he treated like scripture, like law
Yet he spends his days now in the absence of good fortune
Sin has forged in his lungs
I will never think of finding another heart with a pulse so
Or a hand with fingertips that squeeze my cuticles
Nor will I discover groans deep in my throat so faithful to the sob
Instead of sitting atop a pale dessert
observing the tumbleweed trot
I’ll meet all of the in-between lovers
Over a setting sun, on the beach
with their cars parked in the lot
While sipping grains of sand flavored lemon
With notes of grief and gaping hole
I’ll ask them, was leaving easy?
A soul-guarding question, no artist can clone
I’m so sorry, I’m still trying to dig these truths out of my ribs
Although they’re buried too deeply
That there is a rusting residue in my chest
I have opened the ribs of my heart much too long
to these lovers, grief and reverence combined
That these bones have rusted from the air
So much so that my lungs feel confined
Yet I still cannot breathe.
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