[to know a body when it opens or is willing to be closed. that holds fragility yet transcends breaking. to think that you believe you're imperfect to look at. rearrange yourself and fidget when you feel me looking. as if there weren't an essence of love at your core so obvious.]
I get hung up on how beautiful everybody is. I could give hours to the arching of a foot. The strength and vulnerability of a hooked elbow. But would that be sick, and would I see those hours back? I am drawn to the joints the more I recognize the way my own life hinges and contracts.
I want to sleep after coffee and wake on the floor and it's warm and you're watching me and I don't know. (Weigh you in my mind long after you're gone.) I want the safety I feel when I wake up and you're there. Except I can't sleep, so I throw up. Punish the coffee for failing to enliven me.
I can't swallow. Raise my chin and snap my eyes back. Swallow, but my throat's raw and the coffee machine is beeping and I wish you'd walk over and smack it into obedience, but it won't and you won't. You just sit on the other side of the floor. Waiting for me to swallow. Watching me. Take me frost-bitten, but you don't leave me cold.
And if I swallow, then you'll get up and make the beeping go away. Press my thumb into my throat and all of a sudden, it doesn't hurt. I yawn. My unvarnished fingernails.
Wish I could be pretty for you.
Except before I can, you're not there anymore. You've gone to dumb the machine. I lie back on the floor. Next to my coffee, I'm falling asleep and when I wake up, you'll be here again. Watching me. I'll feel pretty and you'll be safe again. Take me vulnerable, but will you leave me safe?
