Your mouth fumbles
When you call me baby
The word is foreign.
You are afraid.
A mouse caught in the gaze of a snake.
Will it slice your tongue if you say it too hard?
Or too soft?

It rolls up your throat
Pushes past your teeth with great strength
Awkward and sounding slightly out of breath
You mumble it between "hey' and "how are you"
Squished and small
Like it doesn't deserve recognition or even its own space.

You've wrapped it in fear
Hoping that if you say it nicely
Maybe somehow it will be less like a missile
Maybe this time it won't hurt.

It is exotic to that mouth of yours.
A rare commodity,
A precious rock we have to excavate
Our own romantic version of the sword in the stone

I went for a skate
Down to the grocery store
I forgot my shoes

I was startled to hear the sound of kissing again. Flesh lapping against each other like waves, my hands stroking the nape of your neck, tracing patterns and you biting my lip, grinning a little bit.
Kiss me.
We're way too eager that your crooked teeth bump against mine.
Laugh and pull away.
Graze the hollow at the base of my throat.
Your earlobes.

Your hands.
My *******.
Gasps that escape our lips.
Kiss.

I see you
but you don't see me.

Too afraid to give a hello, a smile, a noticeable notice.

I note everything about you;
your hair
your lips
your clothes
your aura
your everything.

I want to be yours, and you mine.
Though we've never met; isn't it strange?

Love at first sight, or lust at first sight?
Unrequited love, or lovers in a past life?
What could we be, if I just say-

You leave.

im guilty--
biting my nail, biting my lip,
biting my
t o n g u e

fidgeting, flickering eyes that go
on and off, on and off
me

im chronic,
nervous,
in a state of
mind your own
business

im obsessed with
looking down at my feet as i walk


im forever stuck
in this awkward
edge-of-pubescence
b o d y

when i've already
died
a few hundred times
over



i dont have *******
i have two hearts,
beating out of my chest


im fragile,
tender,
might just topple over
or burst
into a million pieces of

confetti,
in my room:
its always somebody's birthday
that somebody is me
but i don't know somebody,
perhaps i used to know me
perhaps i never did



sometimes i want
oranges:
bright, round, yellow
fresh, spunky, don't-give-a-****

ill roll
whenever you put me down

im just a lemon:
yellow, iffy-butty

please
dont put me down



i just want someone to know me
(love me)

i just want to be an orange:
i wanna be what i seem
nothing to go off about
nothing to get put down about


i come as i am
and i get sent back home for it

you see--
i know nothing
all too well

Dear you,
I want you to come closer
Although I try to push you away
I am awkward
And the awkwardness only keeps growing

The more I have, the more you loose
But the more you have, the more I get
The equation is complicated
I don’t expect you to understand
After all
You never understood me either.

I am there
Beside you and behind you
All you have to do is turn
turn stealthily enough
So I don’t have time to run
I told you
I am awkward
And the awkwardness only grows

I slouch, I *******, I squeak
just like your bedroom door I creak
unopened for centuries
Unheard for decades
Unseen for years
Not because I’m weak but because
I am awkward
And the awkwardness only grows

i live in a pineapple under the sea
or you could say I hide
Hide from you, hide from me
Hide from the rest of the  reality
but I am always there
I always will
For I have to be

Don’t acknowledge me
Validation is not my need
But don’t forget me either
For I have this hidden greed

Never leave your own side
I need to follow
Never  leave my side either
But know
To me,
Ignorance is a bliss
For I am awkward
And the awkwardness only grows