You accept my flaws but I want to be flawless.
You draw me back in with the strength of your shoulders. With the heat of your breath. With the curve of your smile. With the softness of your words and the way a steady hand floats over my fragile bones.
I want to pull away, but it’s cold here.
It’s not that I think you don’t care it’s just that it’s 2AM and you get this look on your face when I tell you that I’m sad when I turn away from the window and the smoke blows away unwanted and you’re already pushing out lines I’ve heard a thousand times it’s always the same it’s always Everything Will Be Fine and You’re Amazing To Me and Be Happy We’re So Good Together
But I’m only good for A) sitting pretty in lace underwear and B) being happy smiling lovely funny perfect
And it’s an act it’s an act it’s an act I have to turn away in the dark when I cry and I wait till you look away to drop the smile from my face and you think I’m perfect you don’t see what creeps in at the peripheries.
The cracks are starting to show through
I want to fall asleep in your bed on your sofa in your car on your floor in your arms I want to smoke out your window I want to sit fully clothed in your shower I want to cry in front of you I want to make you see I want to write you letters I want you to write back I want to make you dinner I want to nurse you back to health I want to scream at you that I am not okay I want to let you make it okay I want to have sex with you I want to have sex with you I want to have sex with you at 1am at 2am at 3am at 4am I want to read books over your shoulder I want to get lost in a crowd with you I want you hit you hard I want you to hit me back I want something to feel real I want to run through forests with you I want to be naked with you I want to do perfectly normal things like ironing but naked I want to wash your hair and bathe your wounds I want to kiss your forehead I want to love you I want to be loved I want to watch rubbish television with you and dance to rubbish music I want to fuck against the wall I want to take pictures I want to leave my clothes on your floor I want to listen to your heartbeat I want to hear your heavy breathing on the phone I want to meet your family I want them to like me I want you to think about me before you fall asleep I want you to think about me always because I think about you always I think about how much I want this
I’m sick of this routine of this nothingness of this this this I know every spring of your fucking mattress I know every creak of your fucking stairs I know every curve of your fucking body every angle of your fucking face I know what you’re going to say before you say it I fucking know the script to this fucking play we’re acting in and I can’t fucking take it any more I need to escape I need to scream the fucking walls down I am scared I am trapped I can’t fucking breathe
Sometimes I get sad in the night and I wake up and look at your face and you’re asleep so peaceful so beautiful and I’m so jealous and so alone and I hate you in that moment I hate you I hate you because you’re not there for me you’re not even half a foot away we’re touching at the ankles the knees the hips the shoulders and I couldn’t feel more alone and I go the window and the movement doesn’t wake you and I pull apart the curtain and the moonlight that falls through onto your face doesn’t wake you and I smoke and the smell doesn’t wake you and I crawl back to bed and my presence doesn’t wake you and I fall asleep and dream a dream where you can’t take your eyes off my face and you can’t stop asking why.
And fuck this fucking life I have lost you now there is nothing
Skin on skin and we might as well have never met
I don’t think you see me
I don’t think you know me
A small girl became increasingly paralysed by her parents’ frequently violent rows. Sometimes she would spend hours standing completely still in the toilet simply because that was where she happened to be when the fight began. Finally, in moments of calm, she would take bottles of milk from the fridge or doorstep and leave them in places where she may later become trapped.
Her parents were unable to understand why they found bottles of sour milk in every room in the house.
I like your pretty, shallow breaths that catch in your throat.
I like the idea that after I’ve left, you find it hard to forget my presence. I like that somewhere between the sweet wrappers and the empty DVD cases, my laughter hangs in the air. A forgotten top of mine lies on your floor and you can’t help but remember me lying across your bed, without it. A hairband here, a half-read book there. My smell laces your pillow. Things I played with and looked through lie on your floor, or moved from their original places. Proof that I was here, that I changed things.
I like that.
I sometimes go back to that field where we lay. We broke the tall grass that day, leaving the shape of our bodies under the sun. Leaving a trail where we chased each other under the summer sun. But it’s grown back now. Little flowers grow where we sat. Now I sit in the place where we smiled, but one body alone doesn’t quite leave the same imprint. I miss you.
