Bleach

When you pulled your skin back,
did you find what you were running from?
Was it shaped
like slow, open arms, lit
with magnesium? And
do you need me to undress you now?
Because I remember turning myself
inside-out
for your enjoyment and
losing my good coat in the process.
How we float,
dunking our heads to test our breath.
Slowly,
we are drinking this river to get closer to each other.
Catapults line our thirsty throats
and we cannot scream.
We cannot present our anthems of
frustrated worth. Tie
collapsing fortitude to my limbs.
I will not quarter.
My shoulders are cementing,
stagnant clay pits.
I've dyed my earlobes red from
all the shrugging. But when I sing,
the clay goes slowly soft.
And after 6 months of staining like children,
for my birthday
you gave me more bleach.
I scrubbed until I was clean.
Last night,
I watched a middle-aged man lose
two weeks of self help tapes in
a coffee shop.
He had been turned down
by a twenty-something who
didn't trust innocence.
So is this my sentence for giving up on love?
My dreams and nightmares are distorting.
Horses are running wild through cemeteries
and in the background you
are laughing.
I need an exorcist, most nights.
But I settle for a finger-painting,
or more bleach.
Which leads me to ask;
Did you understand I wasn't a jeweler?
Just a stranger who knew
rubies were found in the hearts of the missing.

If I had touched you
as hard as I wanted to,
my lips would still be imprinted onto your fist.
After all,
this explosion began
with the kiss
we missed.
But that's not to say I couldn't bleed still.
I digress.
If it wasn't for the scratches of the win,
I wouldn't remember the good parts.
Like the night we waltzed
between the knees of the butterflies
and you laughed,
and said it tickled.
Or those December windows
we steamed without breathing.
I've gathered these memories into
the type of neighborhood where
porch swings don't budge.
I watch the porcelain grey in the bathtubs.
I watch the wallpaper creep from the molding.
This is where I learned
to lie,
and to shiver.
I always imagined I would marry the girl
who left: the painter blind, the
poet speechless.
But she would want to see the neighbors,
and I can't go back there.
So instead, I will marry
a girl with eyes like walls.
A girl who fancies herself.
A girl who can't see the backgrounds in portraits.
And when she sleeps, I'll
sneak out into the night, alone, and
ask how we could forget that
flowers are still flowers in the rain.

I still water the plum tree you planted.
And sometimes, when the wind blows.
The branches scratch up against
the inside of my ribs.
And it tickles me to tears.