You pulled away my pinky toe
Rolled it like a cigar in your fingers
Daring me to love you
I almost lost my balance then
But I don’t suppose you noticed
I watched it sniff at the smoke in your hand
And I’m quite glad you didn’t give my balance one dog biscuit of your attention
For it quickly ran back to my widespread, flailing arms and licked my beaming face as I listened to your lack-of-depth discussion
I know butterfly band-aids sound *****
And stitches sound weak
So I don’t really blame you all that much for simply puffing up peppery, gray clouds that stung my open wound as you exhaled,
Speaking to no one, instead.
I had, I believe
A peppermint stick I had to use after that, to keep me all upright
[You told me once it smelled of feet
But I don’t think you knew what it was there for]
I never complained about it,
‘Cause I knew you were happy
Smoking my joint and talking to no one
But I knew how much you wanted that peppermint stick as well
So I wrapped it up in a hug one autumn morning,
And as we embraced
[again] there was a whispered dare to love you
By the time we broke away, it was December and our hands were growing cold, yours going numb around the peppermint stripes
And though I’d tried so long to prevent it
I fall anyway that winter
As soon as you walked away with more of my balance to steady you
I was very out of place
I suppose that is why winter is my favorite season
Nothing falls that is winter
Nothing moves that is frozen,
Including your fingers
That I can pretend were too rigid to close around my hand, since they were always wrapped around that peppermint stick so cold, their tips turned blue
But you knew that was my favorite color
And you only like dressing open wounds
So you never paid your bare hands that much attention
We made a snowman that season
There was no fire to be found except that tingling in the small of my back when our lips meet,
So I offered my two favorite bones in my spine as coal for the eyes
I winced as you pulled them out with your bare hands
But I didn’t complain, ‘cause I noticed that the pieces were so hot that your fingertips weren’t so blue anymore,
And that made me happy, though I had to walk much more carefully after that
I knew I’d long since lost my balance
There was no kindling to be found, neither
So you reached for the peppermint stick that we
Split
Down the middle
To serve as our snowman’s arms
We laughed when we realized his hands smelled like feet
But it subsided when you asked
If I loved you
I sat down quickly
Your question was too heavy and caught me off balance
And that is never a good place to be caught
When one has a pinky toe, a peppermint stick, and two spine bones missing
I remember you left suddenly after that
And as soon as you’d gone, I wanted to chase you
But I was finding it difficult to stand
So I looked up at our snowman’s beaming face
And pulled his right arm right out
But it was too thin and broke under my weight
And as I collapsed to the frozen ground for the last time
I wondered how he could be so upright and balanced with an appendage missing
And I wish I’d told you sooner
That as humans
We are constantly falling
But we use the joints of our toes and the muscles in our backs
To keep from doing so.
I had always loved you.