I am the plum encompassed, saliva smothered bookend of a wilting and withering nicotine fix. My ends fray up in silent smoke. Fingernails curl backwards like parchment paper. The breath of my ashes whispers its anguish into the vacancy of a private sky. My curled hair fringes and my eyelashes become crisp. My lips, my tongue, my breath, and all the passion in my kiss melts. My entirety is composed of velvet puddles.
My skin is raw, and I am without four walls. I am the emaciated, iron jaw gutters of dustbowl, vacant city. His hands smell like metal, his fingers taste like dimes, and the hair on his arms is rough against my cheeks. I still pretend I am plump and pink. My hips even blossom sometimes.
He rifles through the gaping landscapes of me. He presses his cheek to my cheek. He is so concrete that it makes my skin hurt; even my bones feel it. I am all splinters.
The leather tongue of the desert yawns before us; it laps up the billowing Western sky. Night holds her breath on the cracked foundation of our front porch. The screen is split and she huddles there. She is frightened by another "1 a.m." Fragile--she trembles like a child. She collects her glistening jacks, her paddle ball, and her knobby knees. The wind catches her marigold hem; it traces its fingers over the red threaded flowers of her skirt. She tucks the excess fabric between her thighs. She strives for the fetal position. She is navy Keds and glow-in-the-dark shoe-laces. She never seems to get too old.
We cut the tension, and swallow it down. The thickness of it coats the lining of our throats. We chase it down with Mam's Lemon Meringue Pie.
I watch saliva and coconut flakes gather together at the sides of your mouth. I wonder how long it has been since you've said something nice to me.
You used to think my apron hugged my figure perfectly; and I was a wife. You'd watch my skin bathe itself in the buttermilk lighting of our quaint, flickering, kitchen. Before the flannel forgot itself, before the bed springs sprouted up through the rot, we were tangled sheets. Your body, and my body devoured each other; we fit together seamlessly. Now, we hold each other between vacant lines. And we are lonely. We ignore the draft coming from behind the blue boards that smile down upon our naked limbs, like gap-toothed men. Between the velvet pews of Sunday, and the contracts that bind us in-we waste away in silent spools, wondering what might have been.
He rifles through the gaping landscapes of me. He presses his cheek to my cheek. He is so concrete that it makes my skin hurt; even my bones feel it. I am all splinters.
The leather tongue of the desert yawns before us; it laps up the billowing Western sky. Night holds her breath on the cracked foundation of our front porch. The screen is split and she huddles there. She is frightened by another "1 a.m." Fragile--she trembles like a child. She collects her glistening jacks, her paddle ball, and her knobby knees. The wind catches her marigold hem; it traces its fingers over the red threaded flowers of her skirt. She tucks the excess fabric between her thighs. She strives for the fetal position. She is navy Keds and glow-in-the-dark shoe-laces. She never seems to get too old.
We cut the tension, and swallow it down. The thickness of it coats the lining of our throats. We chase it down with Mam's Lemon Meringue Pie.
I watch saliva and coconut flakes gather together at the sides of your mouth. I wonder how long it has been since you've said something nice to me.
You used to think my apron hugged my figure perfectly; and I was a wife. You'd watch my skin bathe itself in the buttermilk lighting of our quaint, flickering, kitchen. Before the flannel forgot itself, before the bed springs sprouted up through the rot, we were tangled sheets. Your body, and my body devoured each other; we fit together seamlessly. Now, we hold each other between vacant lines. And we are lonely. We ignore the draft coming from behind the blue boards that smile down upon our naked limbs, like gap-toothed men. Between the velvet pews of Sunday, and the contracts that bind us in-we waste away in silent spools, wondering what might have been.
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