You swore to love my oceans but you only toe my shorelines
I handed you that shell hoping you would keep it
My mind wandered away
I thought of the way you hold my hand as I watched the osprey pluck its dinner from the sea
I wonder if the fish panics as the air leaves its lungs
Or blindly and helplessly goes with the flight
I wonder if it falls in love with the talons against its scales
You swore you love the sun but you never watched it rise with me
I threw the shell back into the sand
I don't need memorabilia
I don't want to remember this night
It holds only a memory
Of the trembling of my legs
And silence under the stars
You dragged my heart along
I dragged you to that beach
You were distracted
With what or whom I'm unsure
I wanted to share those stars with you
I longed for conversation
Some ******* interest
But I settled for nods of your head and constantly reassuring myself
Maybe it's not me
I was staring at the beauty of the stars and felt like I was punched in the chest
I wanted to lay and let the ocean drift me out
Not in the sense that I just wanted the days to end
Rather to spend them at peace and free with the tides
All my separate parts could reach the different corners of the earth
Maybe you'd miss me then
Maybe you'd think of my indifference
And see something familiar in the sound of the waves withdrawing into themselves
The ocean will mock the way you play with my heart
It will offer you it's hand and then take it back
Over and over and over
Stop asking me for my oceans
I am tired of hearing you tell me you don't want to swim

You are clean cotton doused in Windex
the OCD mom
the sam's club size bottles of hand sanitizer
the peace
the calm
I am the glass window smeared with fingerprints
industrial sharpie zig-zagged across a white wall
I am battle cries across an open field
I am the instant regret of a slammed door
If you love me you can love the valley of flowers between my thighs but you can't be afraid of the blood and gore
Sometimes I wonder if my skin is one solid calloused mass
or layers of paint peeling away off of a house
I wonder if as the paint on my shins chips away
you can see the bruises from bike pedals
I wonder if you can hear my painful shouts
I wonder if you grab a hold of the layer covering my penal gland
you can read a hardcover novel about my worry and doubt
I wonder if you can see the jagged scars along my spine
from every time I got friendly with somebody's knife
I wonder if you can see the way I smiled through the spite
shook hands with the same people
who drove daggers through my spirits
laughed when the rain fell the hardest
and always hardest it might
I know that you can love my best dressed persona
my freshly brushed teeth
But with my good hair days
come the days I nearly rip it from my scalp
Then there are days when I am completely in love with me
I am a disproportional mess of history
a collection of experiences that have begun to shape my existence
I am not made of stone
I am flesh and bone
I am a heartbeat and lungs of persistence.
I am clay in your hands, and I am at your fingers demand.
There is music when you strum a guitar
but it still holds importance when it is silent in it's stand
Don't mistake my quiet for doubt
I am trying my very best
when I'm a river try being my drought
Pull me closer
don't shut me out
You said our love could be a garden
maybe we need is just a little more rain
We've got the love part down
Our kisses are roses
touches are carnations
There could be a petal for every ounce of our pain
Our garden has been planted we just need some patience