Aftertaste

Clothespin Fantasy

I am pinned to my bed by the smell of you
There's a clothespin pinched on each of my feelings
hanging them out to dry, for you to see
my dirtiest fantasies
of you, pinning me to my bed

calling me baby

making me love
the way you fervently

love my body raw, grinding

your broken insides

against mine. Still—it's friction, electric
shock to my system, sparking
a trembling question I don’t know

if I should ask—

Touching is not love, you say, as
you skim a hand up my thigh, and I immediately want
to take the clothespin off my feelings

Aftertaste of Sugar

I saw him sitting in a sweet-smelling coffee shop

filled to bursting with iced cakes sitting pretty

behind glittering cases and decadent pastries lounging

on display, drunk on their own sugar.

Beginnings are sweet:
peach sunsets and butterfly kisses,

sand in our clothes from lying entwined

on twilight beaches, moments my heart felt soft

as his lips brushing against my forehead

It was too sweet,

if you ask me

Shoulda known

how sick to my stomach I would be

Said he doesn’t want to fall in love, because home is where the heart is

and he can’t build a home in a woman

whose heart is too heated to be anything

but a fire hazard.

It was in the aftertaste of heartache that I understood

endings are never sweet like the beginning
when we met as fortuitous accident

in a sweet-smelling coffee shop

A Caricature of Womanhood

He tells me I have a pretty cunt and says he loves me right after

Love can be complicated, but I don’t understand why

every man I’ve dated has the same greasy fetish

for force-feeding me ripe strawberries that taste like sour milk.

The cruel ones walk like royalty and absentmindedly

tell me I’m beautiful, like that is consolation

for not responding to my texts.

Before we have sex, they always ask

if they can leave a collar of lavender handprints

around my throat.

At least they asked.

Owning things turns them on

—if only they would own up

to shearing shards off my innocence, but

these men grew out of the silk-haired baby boys

who giggle and grin when they break their toys.

After sex, I contour the shit out of my shame

to the watery strains of Tchaikovsky and think

I am a caricature of the beauty men want;

they are the reason I am convinced

womanhood is just a sage euphemism

for developing tits.

Sweaty

I’ve got my hands sticky
with soft-hearted feelings for

your smile—I don't want to remember it
as the distance separating us

I Can't Meet You Halfway

Men admire my mind, find it fascinating
enough to be entertaining, but not

the way my fire
coloured hair conceals an inferno

simmering beneath
They never see the scarlet sign to stop,
never even proceed with caution.
He made the tangled thoughts running
through my head run even. I owe him

the reason all those lines crumbled
and why I fake laugh so hard I wilt
I wish I could ask him how it feels
to love someone halfway

Frenetic Geometry

My curves fit against your edges like

circles falling in love with triangles

I guess we were two different
shapes bent too much out of shape
to fit together

Wallflower in Concrete

I feel like a wallflower someone tried to plant in concrete
     If there is a God, I want to ask why
He made me this way when there's no cure
for too much love and I’m tired of apologizing

for loving blindly at breakneck speed,

even though I know I will crash

and burn
again

          I thought I didn't have to do this
again: shield myself from breaking
piece by piece, especially when

I don't know how else to be
other than too full of love and      lonely
for another to see me, because no one ever has
wanted to spend their time on a wallflower
stuck in concrete

Black and White (bruising)    

Black  

-

I carve your kisses out of my skin

because I fucking
hate you

for turning my body into a series of borders undefined, forcing me

into this losing battle to crawl my way out of the deep end
of love while half-heartedly waiting for you to say something

that will touch me deeper
than just the feeling of your fingers on my skin.
You say nothing, so I feel nothing

but the outline of your body
weighing down your side of my bed. You once said
I am too "black and white", not understanding

I love with all or nothing and all I wanted

was for you to break through your selfish walls
and say you love me, too

Required for Reading: Rose-tinted Glasses

I think about you so much that my thoughts have begun to solidify

you called my insides rose-coloured and

you’re right—

I water my pain with pink wine

and spew flowery words

about how my insides wilt

each time you look at me

dispassionately, even though

I wonder how much I love you

because your absence will be pain

I can live through

Losing You Just Feels So Bad

I don’t know why so many things seem filled with the intent
of being lost. I lose something everyday:
bobby pins and multiple opportunities
to tell you I love you. I’m good at losing things
so I gave you bread crumbs to find your way back to me
(even though
I know this won’t bring you back)
Thoughts of you keep me up because I drink
my feelings out of my coffee cup. It’s 3 a.m.
and a little voice inside of me is saying
I miss you

but I know it’s not a disaster
Losing you won’t be too hard
because I’ve mastered the art of losing things

Pillow Thoughts

your hair

running like soft grass

through my winter fingers

wisps of summer I wish I could keep

like the daffodils you picked for me

your impatient grip

on my petal-shaped hips

like you believed they hid the answers

to the silent questions

asked by your pilgrim hands

your lips

kissing along my hairline, searching

for my temple before you drift asleep

our breaths mingling

in the tiny universe our bodies created              just the two of us