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the hand
the hand around my heart has crusted yellow nails, as old as time, as long as waiting, and underneath them, my skin rots against sand, and the hand never sleeps, it never rests, just squeezes and scratches until my heart stops breathing present air.
the hand wants me to kiss it, in veneration, thank it for cursing me with a golden childhood from which i’ll never recover knowing it will never be as good as it was. never better.
as the hand pries the inside of my brain, i try to hide the question underneath pillows that smell like the back of my father’s neck; like his black hair:
“will it miss me?”
the hand squeezes.
“will i always be a kid there?”
the hand scratches.
“will i always run free, barefoot? does my laughter still echoes against the sun of empty beaches? am i still spinning with my grandmother in the living room? is my skin still stuck between my mother’s fingers?
does the cold floor miss my footsteps, my hands on the walls? is it still real?
is it still real even if it’s dead?”
the hand tightens. its nails almost golden under the moonlight of nostalgia. i kiss it with my eyes closed. thank you.
i hear the child i once was screaming and she is laughing. it will never be better than it was.
Hi honey how was your day at the gaslighting factory?
ive never worked there. stop saying i work there
swallow
i love you but i bleed and you don’t cough when you drink all my tears, you swallow them whole, feast and feed insecurities to our empty nest, and my weakened bones watch as you devour what’s best of your most loyal victim.
hurts but i can pretend when my phone burps another one of your horny texts and i’ve already starved myself of plans that don’t involve you and while i drive through the same humiliation street i max out my radio and the music that blasts through my open windows is a bird that i’ll never set free and in this moments i die.
in death, i taste what is right. i chew on what will never be and i let myself be swallowed into a universe where you love me.
your bed is still soaked with her sweat when i arrive and on your skin i can taste her fingertips but i swallow them open-mouthed. as i breathe in your perfume on my tongue, you run your hands through a belly that won’t ever spit babies with your face.
the sheets of the never-mine-bed cocoon me against the cold, in the spaces where your arms won’t hold me, and it’s lonely but i feel the walls of your stomach, i breathe the air on your throat, and nothing can get me out but you. you always get needy now and you’ll devour and i’ll swallow you over a cold cup of coffee and you’ll smile as i walk away, choked on the blood of betrayal, drooling over unsaid goodbyes.
camomile
you don’t kiss me good morning even when you need me and your apologies are silly little jokes and it’s all fun when you want it to be but my nostrils burn in camomile and i do love you and i swear i almost forgive you but i don’t.
feels good to punish, something powerful and mine to hold on to when there’s nothing else and i’m know you feel the same.
in the empty violence in your eyes, i see all the love that never was, the unloved bull, red and ready for another battle against yourself. you’ve burnt out and now you fade away and you can’t see it, but i’m right behind you and in this path, we don’t hold hands and it’s better that way.
when you do need my hand, never want, never want, you don’t ask for it, you demand and i offer them both to you as a sacrifice for giving me everything that i never wanted, not when it came from you and i sound ungrateful and you can call me whatever you want and i’ll pretend i don’t think about your words when i’m alone.
together, we are always alone.
in the safe closure of your arms i wonder whether it’s bad that my self-hate comes out in your voice and you are right, you are right, you are right but you don’t kiss me goodnight and i don’t want you to.
