I Would Leave Me If I Could: A Collection of Poetry(5)

Waking up and staying in bed for a couple extra hours so I can see what color your eyes are in that special light we only see at 6 a.m.

That silver peeking through the cracks around your blackout shades and bouncing off your brown eyes that send me into a fully caffeinated rush.

Like they’re soaked in coffee grinds and I can see the steam rising off of their surface when your gaze sets me on fire.

So we turn up the heat again.

And your sweat is dripping off your chest and your open fist is around my neck and I’m grinding into your lap, rocking my hips against your weight to match the ins and outs of your breathing.

(Can you tell that this is the pattern I’m following?

Your breathing quickens…)

Your teeth are in my skin

and you’re pulling fibers of tissue from my lips and I wonder, If I bleed, will you like the taste?

Now we’re driving down the highway and my head is in your lap.

Tasting the salt of your skin and feeling you grow in my mouth and the hum of the engine

is like a million fingertips between my legs.

There are people passing by in their cars unaware and unassuming

but I’m praying they’ll look over and watch me worship you.

Watch me work

to assure

that there is not a single millimeter of space in my mouth that isn’t filled.

Your hair falls out of place and you clutch the wheel

and press your belt into my cheek.

I hope it leaves a mark.

And days later my tongue feels like it doesn’t fit in my mouth the same without you in it.

It’s your laugh, and your calculating eyes.

Your wrinkled brows and the static in your grin when you can’t think of the right words to say and I know it frustrates you because words are the only thing you’ve ever had total control over.

It’s the feeling in my stomach like the moment

you drop a scoop of ice cream into a root beer float

and the entire thing threatens to bubble over.

Carbonated

and chaotic

in my chest.

It’s the sheer comfort.

You’re as vibrant as a stranger, but as warm as a friend.

Like every day

I get reintroduced to someone I’ve known my whole life.

Like meeting myself in a mirror.

The way you take over my entire body and mind

like you’re putting your own personal filter over the lens of my life so that I see it in your colors.

And my hands shake

and I swallow hard

when I realize how much nicer life looks in your saturation.

My brain buzzing

like the rattle of a neon light at odd hours of the night

when I’m pacing

and wringing my hands,

counting the days till I see your face again.

And the irony in how fine life seemed before.

How quickly you made it seem like nothing

would ever suffice

without you,

a part of it.

Why the fuck was I at the party?





THE BREAKUP


There is no combination of words in the English language,

that slice right between your teeth

with the perfect paradox of hate and love,

the same way as

“I love you,

like a brother.”





THE PROFESSIONAL


I am currently seeking employment.

I am a professional holiday girlfriend.

I have great references and highly impressive past work experiences.

I have been featured in 7 family holiday photos: —6 Christmases

—and 1 Hanukkah.

Specialties include

my “famous brownies.”

I will:

—do the dishes

—look through baby photos with your mother —have a long list of baby names to suggest for the child we will never have but your grandmother will pitifully dream about us having before she dies.

I have:

—plenty of clean, respectable dresses —drinking games to impress your cousins.

World-class gift giver and wrapper

(it’s easier to nail it when you only ever have to give one gift).

In one particularly extraordinary history, I made a baby blanket from scratch for a relative who was expecting.

I will never complain about missing my family’s festivities for your own,

and I will accept contract termination by spring.

I am 5’4”

with a perfectly straight smile (dental records included, no history of braces) and I will fill any empty space in your family photo.

Please respond before autumn.





LULLABYE


sweet thing, you hang like a chain

around my neck like a beesting in August

in your hollow pain I sweat

hollowed

we wed

I’ve gone cross-eyed and tongue-tied at the prospect of your lips.

like a plaid-skirt-fitted virgin with the devil on my hips I’d melt like a mint in the heat of your mouth.

like a hurricane in a dress shirt headed angry down south

I would give anything to be slipping down your throat.





VIRUS


I once had a fever so high,

I was left to my bed for 7 days.