my body has been void of its own innocence for years
it doesn't remember what it's like to be kissed on the back of the neck for the first time
your finger tips have trailed its every outline

i want to grow new skin because of you
shed all my pink hair in the shower

fall reminds me of the bitten apples
your greedy hands grabbing every variety

pink lady fresh off the vine
i remember how your teeth clenched her
kissed the back of her neck
and how you threw the core out of our moving car on route 30

we don't get our time back
our innocence  either
but we do get a new fall
every year the leaf turns over
every year you throw another core out of your car window

I am in your dreams
you tell the moon to shut me up
tell your fingertips to stop feeling between the rips in my jeans

How do you still remember my touch?
How do i still remember yours?
10 months removed
& my bed still sinks in on your side
my shower still drips pine scented body soap from its ledges

10 months removed
& my chest still sinks in for you

i write everyone
i love
into poetry
how telling it is
that i do not
do the same
for myself

Some days,
life is like holding
an overflowing chest
of diamonds, rubies, and sapphires.  

Other days, I have the same chest,
but I just feel the weight
of a heavy box of rocks.

i want to know somebody

know every detail of their life events
i want to blow the candles on their first birthday
lick the stamp on the first letter they sent

i want to share and be shared intimately

from my brown skin into my core
i want to wrap around his member and see his eyes ask mine for more

i want to nearly bleed to death

over how much I’m able to give
over how much I might withstand if it meant my love would live

because i think people are meant to be shared with one another, tied in an infinitesimal amount of ways; tumbling as one.

Sitting on the bathroom floor
While you shower with the curtain open
Water running out of the tub
In puddles around my feet
I didn’t mind the mess
As long as I felt close to you
I’d always ask how your day was
And you’d answer
Better now, baby
Sometimes I still let the room fill with steam
And remind myself of what it’s like to smell your melon scented body soap
But as the freshness fades
it gets harder to remember
what being in love feels like
I hand myself the towel this time
Dry off
And step out into the puddles
I don’t feel so close to you anymore