I beg for you a better gift, a tongue to bridge the bitter rift.
a plea and a prayer to heal your wounds when there was nothing I could do for you.
I’m not good at pretending, so I won’t act like I don’t know this story
or its condescending ending
my passion always betrays my attempts at control, eventually.
But with you— naked and bathed in sunlight
wistful and blissful and youthfully unfulfilled
ambitious and gaping oraphices and plans to rule the world,
there was nothing but honesty in my fingertips
and every moment that our spasming lungs spent
spilling battlecries together,
cursing history together,
celebrating the fact that nothing lasts forever together—
each of those moments taught me a language to speak my love with:
I’m the wind-up limbs on a suicide machine,
and when I get these last shreds of skin off my bones I will finally be free.
I’m a sandpaper bird in a nest made matches, soaked in gasoline.
I’m broken glass near a playground slide,
I’m a truthful accusation that’s repeatedly denied.
I’m a muffled cry from the neighbor’s door,
I’m a jagged slag of grey slate rock on a mountain near the shore.
I have agonizing edges that refuse to be ignored
and the only way to make them smooth is to make them feel adored.
