I can’t quite tell

If there are parts of me missing

Or extra bits stuffed in the cracks and crevices

It feels somehow like the boys who kissed my skin

Nibbled a little too much off the edges

Leaving sharp corners exposed

But maybe they plucked those thorns from their own sides

And pasted them- no. Plunged them

Into the soft spaces when I wasn’t looking

Or maybe- just maybe when we kissed

They took me between their lips like chewing gum

And spit me out just a little mangled but still all there

Well, mostly there

The substance anyways

Gum loses its sweetness in the chewing

But I suppose I should be grateful he never swallowed me whole

I have never loved a boy so untamed

unsure if he's cold wet pleased or afraid

the harbor of my arms awash in waves

he holds me like I might fly away

oh his eyes are a hurricane

by moonbeam smiles are they framed

a lighting pole his body sways

faith in a fate he'll never claim

we brave the storm- who runs from rain?

Complimented by

comparison to other

girls, "you're so honest."

Don't you know that I

would prefer to be perfect

and mysterious?

He will find another girl with coffee breath and I just hope that when he kisses her he doesn't think of me

He will find another girl with unshaven legs and a moan like crashing waves and I just hope that when he fucks her he doesn't say my name

He will find another girl who bites her cheeks whose nose wrinkles when she laughs whose eyes sometimes leak and I just hope that when he holds her he doesn't miss me

He will find another girl with cold hands that set his skin on fire and I just hope that when he finds her he'll still remember me

I

His shoulder blades are broken glass protruding like some foreign shrapnel and it is all I can do not to pluck them from his spine like petals from a buttercup.

II

The sun catches his coffee eyes like flash paper yet I am the one going up in flames and his cheeks are freckled with ashes and my neck is bruised by the passion of his parted lips.