smwacks98

he spits into the bathroom sink bones pushing against the skin of hands that grip each other's shadows as the breaths come slower. lips crack and splinter as they stretch in a smile that tastes metallic, dull with fear, maraschino cherry red what shining eyes, what glinting teeth look sharper in the light?

the light brushes up over his shoulders traces over his softly parted lips rises and falls against his chest. i lie curled, a question mark beside him above me the fan rotates slowly, dizzily, in its halo of dust i lie still with my hands at my sides asking myself whether to wake him thoughts fill my stomach, sharp wet slivers i do not wish to touch my teeth ache silently with the need to bite

"that can't be blood, blood stains are brown" and then a shrinking silence like string wound around my thumb tighter and tighter still my oilskin eyes slide uneasily against the unseen flaking of yellowed paint and discolored chairs in my head unwelcome are my hands desperately smearing at the grease my face left behind on the bus window two lungs expanding painfully in my stomach seawater rushing in filling up pressing every inch against my ribs "oh, okay"

you never ask the quietly rusted motor how it feels about being fixed or how its new part fits inside it she whispers: it's an illness (we can't stop the fever coming when the dusk gets dark) but where is the cherry-sweet syrup to ease my splintered throat? he wonders why (didn't we talk about this before) aren't you better yet

i lay down to feel the sky settle softly over my bones eyes watering greenly greenly down remember to wear a jacket he said it gets cold up here in the mountains i remember as i take my jacket off feel the green sing forgiveness against my fingers lilting gently gently in the spaces between skin and i curve my spine down into the curve of the hills i remember i saw from the window of the car my father rented, too silver to stay, flashing the sun back into the green where it belonged and my eyes longing in the windows, blinking in the wind but not keeping it. he never let me stop. i stop and wait for the sagebrush to shiver with me juniper and

do you love me like sweetest sugar on your fingers like a leaf pressed tight in your timeworn pages? am i the yellowing in your windows in the night the droplets dancing in your toodark hair? when the stars are too close, will you take refuge in my voice my hands and when i know the clouds beneath your skin will you still let me kiss your cheeks? do you love me like i love you?

the bluest orchids hide in fallen leaves of autumns past, in days with curling corners the truth will set you free, they say, hiding in fields that know no cure for us what secrets are eaten here beneath the aging sky? what fondness the burning air bestows on the bones we bury here the dusk that sleeps in every mouth is rose and scarlet here; we know the truth will set us free

dance in the starlight, he laughs but we hide till the rooftops drip with dew taste your soap-bubble dreams, she whispers but we fall like ash in an ocean wind keep your dandelion wishes! they shout and i wonder at the flecks of gold in their eyes the hardbright curl of something older, something more than the teeth behind our lips

i reach for summer days that flee like fireflies darting weaving through rain-soft fingers and spilling sunshine in your hair the eggshell curve of sky will arch bluely over our heads waiting for fingertips to brush its velvet warmth our cheeks will blush with its glow, our eyes shut tight against the smallest brush of evening chill