take a girl. take
all of her hurt, all of the nails piercing her hands, all
of the dead flowers taped to her skin. take her hair,
tree branches woven through and choppy bangs,
take her chest, how you can practically see her
heartbeat move the rest of her body. take her rib cage,
cracked open and tacked together, held up with fishing line
and guarded with rose bushes. take a girl who has never
been touched tenderly, who prepared for the storm so
vigorously she erased the calm that anticipates the rain.
take a girl with bugs in her brain, who can't help but
look like she's walked through hell barefoot, who
can't help but retrace her steps, who lusts after the heat
and overlooks the blackened char that coats her figure.
take a girl who runs, bolts at the first manifestation of desertion,
who obliterates the promises that lie in front of her just to
watch how easily they erupt. take a girl and call her "chaos"
because it is what she was birthed into and assembled from,
dark dirt packed into the crevices of her smile. take this girl and
give her to a boy. watch
him touch her gently, so gently it feels like he does not touch her
at all. so gently she wants him to ravage her.
give her to a boy that covers her face with his hands, clean hands
that he has scrubbed raw, clean hands that have learned gentle
through trial and error. give her to a boy that has always
done the leaving, he packs his things in the middle of the night
and only takes what he needs. the rest can stay. he is made
up of "look, don't touch," he is stone like marble with cracks running like stitches up his side. he has scars that cover his
clean hands, his arms, his chest, his back. take a girl and give
her to a boy, and watch her trace her fingers over his flesh gently,
so gently it makes him shiver,
so gently she wants to devastate him.
watch them interact like animals in the wild, people who have
grown with their fists up, people who have started from empty
and have learned what it takes to present entirety. watch them
tear each other apart without moving, eyes fixed on their
reserve, begging to know more without flinching.
watch them pull each other apart and fold the pieces around
in their palms, they stick every moment back into it's place,
gently, so gently that they want to rip what each other has
been wrongly taught into shreds, so gently that they want to
scrub what has stained them until it is clean. take a girl and
give her to a boy, let her kiss him so gently that they
want to do something stupid. so gently that they want to make
a mess of each other, so gently that they want to fall in love.

he can't write sober.  the mind of a man who
drinks too much whiskey and touches girls without
blinking. whos body is cold no matter how large the fire in
front of him is. he just can't write sober. i feel like the girls he touches,
rough coarse hands on peach fuzz skin. tongues battling in
and out of holes in my cheeks. angry apathetic grunts and dissatisfied sighs. im afraid this is where my life is headed. i am afraid i am the girls he touches and bitterly touches and fiercely touches and
he can't write sober, but he doesn't always drink. sometimes
his hands shake too much to drink. sometimes he smokes,
sometimes he crushes up pills and snorts them. sometimes
he doesn't bother crushing them up at all, he downs a
stiff drink with three pink or white circles and he sits in a
chair in the living room until he can see his hands move
in front of him, until he can pick up a pencil without wanting
to snap it. he can't write sober, so he doesn't. so he waits
for his mind to come to a tachycardic rhythm and he writes.
and when he does, he writes and writes for days. he can't write
sober but when he's not sober he will write for miles, he will
tell you about why he touches girls like me with soft pink skin
that is fresh, that is easy to bite into, that is full of life and not
stained rough and harsh. he can't write sober, so when
hes not sober he will tell you her name. he will not be able to do anything but tell you her name, her name her name her name-
he gets stuck, when hes not sober. when hes nodding in and out
of consciousness. he gets stuck on her name. he gets stuck on how
she felt under his hands, they weren't rough and calloused when
she touched him. he gets stuck on how she smells, he tries to
speak it onto the page but he can't, not sober anyway. like lavender.
stuck on her name and the lavender, the pretty girls with short
hair that sort of look like her, her name, her name and the
lavender on her neck and her wrists. her pretty wrists. how she
left and she looked like a ballerina in a performance, grabbing her
coat and her hat to cover her ears. that short hair never covered her ears. she looked like a dancer. the lavender, her name and her name and her name like a dancer. holding out her hand for him,
her small pink hand, her fresh hand, and
he can't catch her sober. can't keep up with her movements sober.
can't smell her sober, can't say her name sober. but when hes not
sober, he can write it all down. nod in and out, the lavender, her
name, what was her name again? what did she smell like?
until he passes out in that chair, by that fire, i feel like the girls
he discards and the whiskey he drinks. he can't do any of it sober.
so he doesn't, he doesn't have to.
her name, drink.
lavender, drink.
like a ballerina, drink.
her name, drink. her name, drink. her name, drink.
her hands, drink. her ears, drink.

in a different world i am waking up from a nap when you walk down the stairs with your work clothes on. you pull your shirt over your head and lean in to kiss me on the cheek. i am curled up in your blankets and you lay down next to me. you whisper something against my skin and i fall back asleep.
in a different world i don't savor every second i have with you, i let them pass by lazily. there will be more and more and more. more you walking down the stairs and pulling your shirt over your head. more leaning in to kiss me on the cheek. more blankets and more your skin on mine.
in a different world we eat dinner together, we split one meal like we always do. we eat off the same plate like we always do. we fight over the best bits of the dish like we always do. i win, like you always let me, because you like seeing me eat. we do dishes, we take turns. sometimes you cook and sometimes we walk to the store and sometimes we go out and sit in the same booth. your hand is on my leg the entire time. we make fun of the conversations around us, you mess with the waiter and i drop my silverware. when we get outside you wrap your arms around me and kiss my cheek for no reason.
in a different world you wake up from a nightmare, you rarely have them anymore but every once in a while i can feel your chest rise and fall in a mismatched syncopation. you **** up and mumble something, sometimes its my name and sometimes its not. in a different world i sit up with you and put my hand right by your collarbone. we sit in the darkness for a while. we fall back asleep and your grip is tighter on the space between my hips and my ribcage.
in a different world you read your book and i sit next to you and draw. you start speaking aloud, a passage i've heard a hundred times before. i listen anyway. in a different world i underline excerpts of poetry and read them to you while you fall asleep. i read you what i write. i show you what i draw. in a different world you watch my eyes fill with passion and you nod along to my nonsensical fits of expression. when i'm done, you smile.
in a different world there is a house. there is a ring. there is a dog, a cat, a garden. there is a garden. we give each other everything we promised. there is a garden that we can sit in, there is a mess in the kitchen from a girl trying to make strawberry jam. there is a house, a ring, a dog, a cat, a garden, a girl, a boy, a life.
in a different world there is a life waiting to be built. in a different world it works, we sleep and wake up and think of each other all day and we love each other so much that it almost kills us. in a different world that love is enough.

i fell in love and it curled its hand into a fist and hit me right in the mouth.
i got up and it hit me right in the mouth again.
and i got up again.
i got knocked down into kind words, i threw love into the empty
space between them thinking that it was a drawer to store my belongings in and not just
a black hole with no edges for containment.
i fell in love and it was a dragon that breathed fire all over my clothes
and in my hair, the smoke swirling up into my mouth and nose and eyes.
when you are young, you forget that what is warm can also burn.
i get my head bitten off and lay still on the glass floor until it grows back,
and then i go back to the dragon with my sword bent
and i yell that i am strong enough to keep fighting.
keep knocking me out. keep breathing fire. i will spit my teeth
onto the floor until i am nothing but blood and gums and black eyes and
charred skin.
i fell in love and it was a dragon that i was too small and clumsy
to keep up with. whats the big deal? i'm not comparing myself
to a knight in this analogy. just one of the naive girls who fight
against forces out of her control because they don't know when
to give in. but in every analogy you are a dragon, or a monster, or a big animal with
claws and teeth that sinks into soft pink skin and can't mumble
out an apology with a full mouth. in every analogy you are
something i can't beat, something i let grab me by the throat and
shake me around like a dead rabbit. in every analogy you
are the predator and i am the prey.
i used to fight it, i used to hang dream-catchers in my room and
hold crystals in my hand and talk to the moon. i used to
tell her all about you, tell her to make you more gentle and
keep my heart safe. i was relying on the world to take care of me.
you are the dragon, the monster, the big angry animal
with no remorse and hurt eyes.
and i am not the hero or the knight or the champion. i fell in
love and let it beat me down and knock me out. i win by giving in. i win by caging
you up and putting my sword down. i win by taking my
belongings back and finding safety. i fell in love and it destroyed me. but i win by losing, by never letting it happen again.
i win because im staying down for the count.
i win because  it will never happen again.

i am young. i am in the habit of saying things i think i mean because
i have no one to tell me right from wrong. i am in the habit
of giving everything i have to every one i pass because i have
no one to tell me what is enough and what is too much. it is
all just enough, i give every piece of me to every stranger with
warm hands and it is all just enough, i fall into myself in an
endless spiral of every stranger with a gentle first touch and it
is all just enough. part of how to stop being young is learning
to choose your words carefully, learning what i mean and what
i want to speak into meaning are very different things. part
of how to stop being so young is to learn that i should not have
to empty myself into a gentle touch or a warm hand because
there is no place for me to go besides inside of myself. no one has
the capacity to contain me, no one has the ability to hold all of
what i involve in their cupped hands. i fall through the cracks
in their fingers and onto the floor like sand, how to stop being
young is learning that i am concrete, i cannot push myself into
anyone and expect them to carry me on their shoulders. how to
stop being young is learning that i don't need anyone to fill me
up, to fix me, to calm my brain, to keep me kind or save me.
but i am young. i am in the habit of wanting what i can't have,
i am in the habit of wanting to love so hard it kills me, and that
being said i miss you so much it hurts my skin.