I.

there is a small piece of canvas
under your bed. when i sit on the floor
it peeks out and when i pull it from hiding,
the woman you have painted bears my likeness.
she is bald, but her body is my body.
i do not ask you about it. i put it back
under the box spring frame and when you come
back into the room, we eat guacamole and
you tell me what it's like to be a triplet.

II.

we take mushrooms on graduation day,
but we do not graduate. we run through an
immense field and skim our toes in the cold
water of the Green River. sometimes, to look at you
is scary, because i can see all the rivets in your skin,
can see your face as a skull, and suddenly,
i want to protect you from anything that might ever hurt you.
in a notebook, i write "carrier of weights" and i don't know
what it means. you want to touch me a lot, you want
to press your hands against me. it is new, so i laugh about it,
call you silly. in the morning, i think nothing of it.

III.

we go to boston and we sit on a red couch
that swallows our bodies. you put your head in my lap.
later, when we've returned home you ask
"was that okay?" i am unsure, but i tell you
that i liked it. i am ashamed because
i did.
we drink Black Velvet until it is blurry
and i close my eyes when you lay me down
in my own bed and pull the sleeves down
on my dress. you touch me as i have never been touched.
you rub your knee between my legs
and the friction of our heat is overwhelming.
you say, "what would happen if you turned around?"

IV.

we are scared. the night is ammunition
for us to touch each other and the summer
is a heated pilgrimage towards a steady death.
i want to be near you all the time.
we cannot go a single night.
our bodies are ferocious, twined and
collapsing in on each other in breath and sigh
and you are rougher now, and do not ask if it's okay.
i do not tell my mother.
you are my secret lover.
i memorize every space you contain
and try to lay in it later.
i want you
all the time.

V.

the winter is meaner.
it gives way to your departure but
you promise you're not really leaving.
it will be better knowing what we're getting into
if we're more sure. we sleep together, bodies apart
and we are very careful now.
but i need you like i didn't know i did before.
it is suffocating me.
i leave your bed for good
because i feel crippled.
if nothing changes, then nothing can change.

VI.

we stop talking.
i scream instead of cry
when i think about how much i miss you.
sometimes i wonder if you know
how hard this is.
because everything you do
just seems so
easy.
i straddle the overwhelming desire to see you
with the need to never see you again.
i wish i had never known you
because i'm not mad at you.
because you did nothing wrong.
because i can't hate you.

VII.

you return my mop and leave it on the doorstep.
you come while i'm at work and put an artsy magazine
on the kitchen table that you know i'll like.
why didn't you wait a half an hour?
i could have made you tea.
we could have talked. but you came while i was away
on purpose.
is this how it will be now?
to know that from afar,
you still know me?
that you think about me just enough
to leave hints that you still care?
but aren't you hurting at all?
i tattooed your skin,
do you still feel that needle?>
do you wince when you trace those rough lines
knowing that somewhere else
i'm fucking someone i'll never love
and wishing you were holding me?

04/06/2010

Posted on 04/06/2010
Copyright © 2024 Lauren Singer