I cried so hard I thought I’d die
for just a taste of something sweet
promised in his eyes.
The ache for what I hadn’t had
filled close to bursting
such pressure in my skin
leaked out in yearning
from beneath lashes
to end in salt upon my lips.
It tastes like the last piece of chocolate
inside my mouth,
and I’m bored with wasting time
pretending to savor dull things.
I should hide my shine for you.
Appease your forever-melancholy
by scraping the diamonds from inside my own eyes.
You would gladly watch me rip the grateful words out, my tongue dead in my fist
except that I am new now,
and you – too bitter to pass my lips –
are free to fly away.
I can taste your strange dynamic on my tongue.
Bitter,
and it sours my stomach.
I don’t know what the flavor is between the two of you while I’m away,
but I want it out of my mouth.
Spit.
Mix your poison far away from me.
The antidote is in my eyes and hands and lips,
and there is not one reason I should be sick for you.
I am free.
I’m sure you had a logical reason
for quietly leaving me behind,
a justifiable synopsis
that made drifting away effortless.
I was confused and hurt,
like a wild animal almost tame
but not quite.
You were my balloon outside the carnival gate,
all those years ago.
So,
what if I breathe in
then out
and drop the string I held too long for you?
There is pleasure in that,
in being weightless for a while.
Dearest,
We live in different worlds,
you in a brain
and I in a heart.
So,
this is how I say
Goodbye.
“It was for the best.”
I told myself
when I doubted again what I had done
to protect my heart.
I have become a master stone mason.
There must be pride in that.
Right?
“It was for the best.”
I know it wasn’t.
Isn’t. – Won’t ever be,
but where do I find the chisel
strong enough
to ruin it all?
Offer my ears riches,
they’ve been blind in darkness too long.
Deliver more to me than dry, bare bones.
Utter something raw and true.
Make it sting.
Say something real.
Speak something worthy.
Leave me certain of your intentions.
I am too strong to pine for definitives a moment longer
But
Make words that are more than empty shells of what could be,
and I will risk my soul to bathe in the light with you.
Write something painfully sexy on my body
with your tongue.
I adore that part of you
which models such stunning sounds
from heavily blank air.
Mold a piece of my heart
into something of use to you
with hands that leave me no language of my own
except a vocabulary belonging to dark and carnal things –
the kind of beast I want to be
when I’m finally free.
My hair is its own color again,
and it is happy and soft for it.
My eyes still look green when I cry,
and I can appreciate that hue.
Sometimes my thoughts feel red and loud
while they beat against the inside of my head.
Luckily, my bones are tempered with enough silence
to contain the commotion.
So I smile and go along with whatever the world is saying.
I wonder if they ever hear the echoes
from beneath the insulation of my contented mane,
and if they do,
why don’t they say something?
I am so strange that surely it must appall you,
yet, I have these blueberry stained lips,
and I want you to taste them anyway,
even if they aren’t sweet enough for you.
The ways that you make me weak are unfamiliar,
and I am angry for allowing them,
as though I have a choice in the matter.
Besides, I like it.
I try to burn you out of me with molten sweat and tears
until you slide from underneath my skin,
but the release is temporary,
and we both know you belong there.
I thought it was history,
but we met in a parking lot today.
I had a conversation with it,
and it went away.
It went like this:
I wish I had a thick rubber band
or a box cutter and some rubbing alcohol.
I could just bite myself
or pinch myself
or scrape my knuckles across some rough, satisfying surface
until I see blood,
but then I would hate myself
for submitting to this thing again.
Haven’t these years taught me something of the honor in vulnerability?
Aren’t I stronger than I was when I would hurt myself for feeling?
So I’ll give in and cry instead.
It’s not so bad
to let a few sneak past my lashes,
……is it?
It isn’t.
Maine Moon 