I’m so exhausted and burned right to the fingertip,
blistering, painfully, every time we dare to touch.
You’ve worn me down, dragged me through
your loops of excuses and confessions and please,
try to understand, I never meant to hurt—
Yeah. I know. I said it’s alright.
But it was never alright to show up drunk
on a dinner date while I spent hours
on my make-up and you forgot to brush your teeth.
I’m so tired, baby. Have you ever had to look at yourself
in the public bathroom mirror, choking
on every tear and all the things you know
you should say, but don’t because you just want to be loved
at the end of everyday? Have you ever spit your emotions,
literally, into the sink, watching them swirl down the drain?
And have you ever had to tell yourself that you deserve this?
That this park bench is a coffin and you’ve killed yourself again.
That maybe, this actually is alright, because there’s things like
second chances, karma, wishing stars, and a bright side.
I’ve been here, not exactly, but in different ways that still felt
like I couldn’t breath right if you were here but I would die
if you were to leave. So I pulled my sweater sleeves over my hands,
sniffled while you weren’t listening, and laughed when you tickled
my ribs. Because this isn’t so bad. It could be worse. It’s alright.
I think I’ll have an iced tea.

The ***** of my eyelids fall,
delicately dripping onto my cheekbones,
powdered, ripe with a pink flush,
matching the creamy pigment I smooth
between my lips before a cacophony
of laughter runs up my throat and out
my mouth. My lashes, black, have been curled
neatly in a spiral that follows my green irises,
my gaze landing on your hands—
but that’s not it.

Just know, I am more than a pretty face.
I am more than the picture you have in your head
of the clothes peeling off my body
like a cocoon—watch me morph—
in the dead of your blackness, calling sweetness
to the surface. I am more than this exaltation.
I am more than the late night phone calls
or the kisses on your cheek.
I am in the breath you lost when I smiled, and I

am in the scratches on your back, the fickle
end of the lock you latched. I am in the noise
that fuzzes in your head, the empty space
haunting you in your bed. I am more
than what you expected—
but that’s not it.

I am also the beat behind these words, the puddle
that gathers from the spill on the floor. I am the mind
that molds. I am the truth that finds. I am the beginning
of every bitter end. I am more than a pretty face.
I am the exhale at the end of the race. Here I am.
I am the kind of hurt that’s still sore, and one day
I am going to be so much more.

I knew all day that you didn’t want me.
The sirens rang, red flag tear ducts, and I
was just waiting for the bomb to drop.
I felt it, in my gut as they say,
like a paperweight, and choked
on all the tears before I even knew
they were coming. Here’s the thing—
you asked me. The rest spoke for itself.

The dress, the earrings, the phone call, the couch,
your gym shorts, glasses, and answering machine.

But we went to dinner, and you called me beautiful.
You threw croutons over the table, made me laugh,
let me hold your hand while they brought my iced tea.
I even found myself picturing you next to me.
I spread my palms, open, but I didn’t ask for a thing.
Yet, you kept defending yourself, explaining everything,
and I just wanted you to pay for the two of us to eat.

Your face is all that I see. Then why, why do I find myself
time after time again in these situations
where I keep plugging myself into equations
that obviously aren’t meant to be? You’re so sweet.
But if you searched through the crowd,
I’m not sure you’d want to find me.

I should have left you on the couch. Honestly,
I knew all day that you didn’t want me.
But I kissed you a million little times,
let your tongue explore my silent confessions,
willed you to find yourself
through the spaces of my mouth.
I should have just left you on the couch.

You’ve dammned yourself to hell,
crawled weakly back, back, back—
you knew where to find me.

I know, because I’ve dealt massiveley
with the way you’d hold me backwards
upon a plateau of lies that smell like liquor,
like liptstick, and like twisted lullabies.
No one should have to fall asleep at night
to an I told you so or the just let me go to sleep.
I know, because I’ve been hit without being touched.
I’ve catapulted through your dense disguise,
getting stuck in the aftermath, losing
myself in a realm of make-believe promises
to keep—
*******. Just keep yourself away from me!
I know, because I’ve loved you.
And maybe not in the cause and effect wedding band way,
but the kind where I was immersed, evolved into madness
from your lips on my lips or your hands on my hips.
I know, I know that you’re upset
with who you’ve finally become, because I know you.
Terribly enough, I know you.

So when the white blankets you slow with silence,
an invisible massacre, I’ll know—
I’ll know because I’ve almost been there—
that my face turned soft with glow
will guide you home
because I’m the only real thing you’ve ever known.

You better kiss me,
your mouth parted and lips
wrecking into the vagabond breath
that escapes from the center of what
I've been talking, and talking, and talking about
all the while you're trying to just shut me up.
So you better kiss me, kiss me
with your hands below my hips
pushing the skin from my bones
and pulling the sins from my mouth
just to spread them on our bodies.
We collide, half-inspired and arching
my back with your hands cupping the dimples
above my tailbone, jumping over my vertebrates,
reaching for my neck to press yourself, harder,
into me. Lights out, sheets to the end of the bed,
I sigh into your ears, XO. Again, and again, and again
gently until I'm bruised and ripened, soft,
pulsing on the verge, releasing our glow
crashing into you, kiss me, kiss me
you better kiss me.

Reconciliation shots,
Grey Goose and Ciroc,
pouring one by one in chipped glasses
on your microwave with the door locked.
Shabba remix on the stereo,
your cotton boxers and my lace underwear
contrasting in the ****** overhead light.
I pursed my lips after the first,
you slapped my *** and said
Don't be a *****! Take it!
without a chaser and without
hesitation you once again
pushed me fearlessly into fate
like all the times before,
when I'd wake up from a graphic nightmare
with resonating touch and hallucinations
from an LSD-like perspective
and you'd hold my head into the crescent
of your neck and tickle my spine
like an instrument
just long enough to calm me into sleep again.
Or when I didn't want to go to that party,
or I was afraid to give that presentation
or I lost all ambition due to past lost confidence.

You kicked the back of my knees so I'd fall
straight into uncertainty,
but that doesn't mean my fragility
has been numbed by your persona.
You're standing in your dress clothes,
but I'm the one fixing your tie.
You get an A+ on the paper,
but I'm the one telling you what to write.
You're the one upset,
but I'm the one who ends up hurt.

So we take our clothes off and apologize
for being whatever we were that day
with reconciliation shots,
cheap Grey Goose and ****** Ciroc.

I’ve found religion in your smile.
Trusted the way it curves, practicing
the lines in my mind with delicacy,
ripening your image until it’s sore.
Your throat baptizes me,
replaces the devil of my intentions
with sweet, rosy breath,
curling my inhibitions until they dive
back into me and I express my very desires
openly on a blanket--
and it’s no sin
because I love the way your spine stands
like a perfect cross, carrying me
to the vision you have of a better me
than what I used to be.
I’ve prayed for your thighs in naughty ways,
but you’ve taken my hands,
folded them into shapes I can’t comprehend
and kissed my fingertips until I was crying
out of confusion and catharsis,
finally understanding what it feels like to count
people, you, as a blessing.
I see God when you make instruments
out of blades of grass, or how that strap
slides off your shoulders when the wind
graces the moment with a whisper.
He gave me an angel disguised as a woman
with too many pillows on her bed and coffee breath,
but you pull me from point to point like taffy,
slowly, lagging, molding me into the gift
you never wished for. I, bestowed at His feet,
unwilling found a soul and a heartbeat
louder than any of my unforgiving words.