My friend brought over a switchblade tonight.

He warned me that it was
sharp.
But it was beautiful.
Black and sleek, like
a wild horse
you're not allowed to get
too close to.

(Or so I've heard. I don't know much
about horses.)

He was playing with it, flicking it
open, sliding it
shut, tempting
fate.
And one time he pressed a button and the blade
swung faster than I could see,
but all of a sudden
steel made love to skin
and then a painful line of
crimson.

It wasn't even the sharp side, it was
the back.
Dull. It should have been
duller.

He made a face.
Went in the bathroom
to clean up.

While he was gone, I picked up the knife
tenderly.
Thinnest pitch
against the palm of my hand. I ran
metal against my fingertips,
over and over again,
the gentlest touch.
Contemplated pressing
harder.

Just to see the scarlet.
Just to hail
a lovely pain,
so close to your heart you can't even
feel it
until you lift the knife,
blade and blood parting ways.

And then I realized
I was too scared.
Not even nervous, just
scared.

(What an ugly word. Scared.)

I put down the switchblade.

He emerged from
the bathroom.
His palm was still bleeding, and so
we parted ways.
He to cleanse his wounds,
and I to cleanse
mine.

I showed him
too much.
And all I wanted
was to show him
too little.

It's a rainy night,
and it will be
a rainy day.

At midnight,
when humble prayers are offered
to a strange god,
I worship only
stranger skin.

He'll ask me why I'm here.
I'll tell him I don't know.
And that's true in so many realms, but
I'll keep the clichés to myself.
And there might be some
silence.
And then maybe he'll ask
if I've ever hurt myself,
or thought about hurting myself,
which I guess is
the pleasantest way
of asking if I use my cutlery for eating
or for breathing.
And I'll shake my head no
as I subtly turn my arm
face down.
Because that was a younger–
older–
shameful–
proud–
self-sacrificing–
but mostly
self-centered–
me.
And who likes to bring up
Her
in polite company?
So then we'll sit.
Maybe more silence.
He'll start asking questions
I don't really want to answer, but only
because they bore me.
And maybe he'll bring up ***.
Or not, but
we'll end up talking about it,
and he'll read something
into that, like it's
always on my mind, but
it's not.
It's just
the only thing I know how to do.
He won't chastise me,
but he should.
And then someone might mention
school, and ah,
here's the real problem, he'll think.
I'll launch into my grades
and the fact that they barely exist.
And he'll ask me why,
but the most I'll be able
to tell him
is that school just doesn't really
do it for me.
We might talk about that
for a while,
but it'll get old quickly
when all I can repeat
is how apathetic I am,
one way
or another.
So
he'll ask me why I'm here.
And
I'll tell him I don't know.

Sometimes I'll pretend the cigarette smoke
is helium, and I'll
take a drag big enough
to make me
lighter
than
air, and I'll
float away as a sunbeam,
warm and blinding,
but a happy blinding, and I'll
smile down on people I used to know,
but I'm too high to recognize
their faces, and I'll
never have to worry
about expectations
or disappointment
or cancer,
because sunbeams don't get cancer,
they just are.

"O, to be a whirling dervish,"
I think to myself
as I drunkenly stumble to the bedroom
and collapse, naked,
slurring bleary hate speech
to a god
I don't believe in.

Feet sink into wet sand,
the beach's embrace.
Early morning sun,
reluctant
to rise,
shuffles itself up out from
the ocean
and crawls across the blue.
I shield my eyes
and stare at where
the sea kisses the sky,
a horizon
forever out of reach.
A glance down
to where the water laps
at my ankles, teasing me.
Gliding in,
just to
steal out.
Each time a gentle caress,
before the wave
leaves with a whisper–
*"It could have been love."