I'm ready
Hands shaking
Blood racing
Unmistakably steady

I know you think
I wear lipstick everyday
And my hands always
Smell like
Chai tea and raspberries

I know you think
My tongue always
Tastes like
Melted sugar
And peppermint

I know you think
I sleep in the same lace
Underwear
You find me in
On certain Sundays
In the spring
When the air is light
And my jeans
Don't stick
To my thighs

I know you think
I'm larger than life

Above chipped teeth
And bruises
And cigarette ash
And acne

I know you think
My eyes don't turn
Blood red
And poison
When I cry

I know you think
My finger nails
Are always
Freshly painted

And I always wear
A bra
That fits

I know you think
Yoga pants are
My comfy clothes,
Never gray sweat pants
With a faded red stain
Between my legs

I know you think
My calves are always
Soft, hairless, and toned

You think
I wait by the phone
With vanilla incense
Burning in a red robe

But you're wrong
And that's impossible

I won't let you in
Cause I won't be
The one
To shatter
Your whole
Pretty, little world

I'm disgusting
Sometimes

I sleep with
Way too many
Girls and guys

And sometimes I cry so much
My eyelids peel
Til I look like
Leather face
And I don't leave my house
For 8 days

And in those 8 days
I shower
Maybe twice

My skin gets rough
In the winter

Right now
I have a
Pimple on
My left shoulder
And every morning
It looks a little
Meaner

My ***** spill
Out over the top
And the sides
Of my favorite
Sport's bra

And I don't care

I smell like burnt oil
And cheap hair dye
Half of the time

I haven't washed
My sheets in a while
And they smell like
Salt water
And chlorine

You put me up on a pedestal
From which I refuse to fall

So I'll stay here,
Far,
Untouchable

You'll never love me
With sticky tampons
In my garbage can
And half drank beer bottles
On my bedroom floor

I'll stay here,
Far,
Untouchable,

Safe

Does it send shivers down your spine
When I tell you I feel purpose
Bleeding from the hand you use
To cling to mine?

Do you memorize the sky's particular shade of dusty blue
The cracks in the cement beneath your high top shoes,

Do you know how much I feel when I look at you?

The words seem to light up in my brain,
Highlighted neon signs
In dense yellows and electric greens,
A million ways to say the things that roam
From place to place inside the galaxies in me

The bright lights talk about the way you move,
The things I dream of you when I'm asleep,
How you call me by my middle name,
How you're always fiddling with a deck of cards because you need something to keep you from your nerves.
How I wait for days to pass until the time when my hands replace the cards,
And our ten digits make the difference
Fifty two cards used to,
And how soon, you'll hold my hand when you're nervous,
You'll hold my hand

He's an ocean.
He gathers my worried thoughts and tosses them to the breeze;
He carries me through bumpy waves and tempest seas.
When he's near, my insides throw themselves against my skin,
Just to be closer to him,
Just to be closer to him.
And none of it is tragic,
Because when I'm with him my heart beats steady in my chest,
And none of it is sin,
For when my organs need rest,
He lulls me to sleep again.

It's the way he walks, I think:
Always on his tip toes, like a child.
I remember the first time I saw him,
Sometime in the spring
In New York City,
I remember the lights in his eyes when the curtains raised
Our first time seeing Broadway.
I remember hearing his little gasps during the show,
And throughout the rest of my life,
I spent my whole life dying to hear his sighs.

As far away as I am,
I only want him to feel definite.
So until the moments in between time blend into the crashing tide of eternity,
I'll be there -
Scratching love notes into his back on lazy Sundays