my skin is slick with coats of you
coats of lacquer coats of liquor
some layers blacker some layers thicker
coats of you that don’t make me bigger
they make me small, so small I can’t see
would you find me
if you looked?
I can’t remember which layers of you
you gave me and which ones I took
it won’t matter soon
I say (to help fall asleep)
unclenching my jaw
to all the things that i can’t see
that i can’t know
that i’m not shown
lines and dots and spaces
endless spaces
curves and edges
all the shapes are forming words
that i can’t make out
that i don’t know how
and i hear the sounds
(the few you gave me)
turning into echoes fast
then all the echoes turning back
their sources lost then found again
(i can’t keep track)
and all the thinks and all the knows
flowing and curling and diving and rolling
shifting around all the pebbles of me
that make up the sand
that cradles the sea
so big and so deep
this unknown invisible ocean made of
you
you have nice lines
he said as he traced them
his body next to mine
she said nothing
tracing them with her eyes
as I twirled a few feet or
a couple worlds away
It was a smile that ended the world
yours, your eyes, and the look in mine
your hand on my neck, a few spoken words
the fuse was lit and
we saw it ignite in
a blast that no one else heard.
The whole thing aflame from a glance and a touch
you fled as it burned while
I stood there and watched the wreckage, entranced
the flames as they danced
the beautiful chaos, the burning expanse
I stood right there and watched the world shake
and all I could see was a giant, heaping
mess of a non-mistake.
you tried to burn it and
burn it you did but
it didn’t disappear
it only dissipated
fire to ash, fell to the earth
but smoke to air, now it’s everywhere
you thought this was better
you thought this would work
fire to ash and smoke to air
but now it’s everywhere you look
and you can’t even see it.
such a large amount
of me I’ve spent on something
as tiny as you
to rightly fall for
someone wrong than to wrongly
fall for someone right
of having something
before you realize just
how much you want it
so many reasons not to stay
and yet you did
because you were a fool
not enough reasons to walk away
and so you don’t
because you’re you
all of it in me
all of it over me
here to stay, here in my hands
and here I still am
giving it all away
don’t try to make me
understand; I only want
it because I don’t
freckles for breakfast 