My skin cracks
when you touch it,
and I can not stop crying
because you think that I am beautiful,
and I hate you for that.

The way you used to say my name
Sang to me louder than any church choir
Ever has before.

And don’t you remember that time
I sang to you?

You danced with me on your bed,
And accidentally put your t.v.
right through the wall.

I will probably never know
How to love anyone as much
as I loved you right then.

Don’t you know,
That I am the dirt
Underneath your fingernails?
And don’t you know
How vile that feels?

The summer I was seventeen
I kissed a boy,
And together we made
A perfect tangle
of youth and vulnerability.

I went back to our river
After he had left for the west coast.

The tides ran lower.

Sometimes I think of you
And you still make me feel like
*** and sunshine,
Frank Sinatra
and street light kisses.

I sat and watched a bug crawl across your skin
From your leg to your hand to your wrist,
to the scars up your arm.

Scars I’ve never noticed,
Scars that look familiar,
Scars that amount to more than mine.

And I looked to see that
My skin appeared to be held together by spiderwebs.

I felt ugly.
I felt human.

And then the sun shone brighter
and I was a million little stained glass pieces.

A million little stained glass pieces held together by spiderwebs.

I folded into myself and
tried to listen to the choir sing
But they were too far away.

I was alone.
I knew you were too.

Alone with the sunshine. Alone in our stained glass.

I just sat there in the grass,
folding and unfolding.
Letting the sun shine into me.

To be under our skin and
To see the way all our little fragments shone.
I wonder how we would look turned inside out.

i spent too many ripe summer evenings
chain smoking on my rooftop
all alone, thinking of just you
and how you hate my cigarettes

I remember back when
I promised myself
I would never kiss anyone
who I did not think the world of.