sevenwords
i am in shock
i just wanted to write the words across the page
not jolt my way down the stairs
each of my legs is a filament
can you see the way my hair stands on end
as i look at you
my fingers coil into cables and jam themselves into any available sockets
the friction between my clothes makes a sparkling crackling sound
loading her boxes
into the back of the truck
the skin between her jeans
and her shirt
is visible
raw and
pale
she drops a cardboard
prism onto
the pavement
and it
unhinges itself
papers and pictures
splattering everywhere
like paint
her face and the faces
of everyone she
loves
flapping on the
concrete
calorie count
she looks at her phone researching
the number in the little leaf of lettuce
she nibbled on before breakfast like a rabbit
she crinkles her nose
at the number pretends to shy the screen away from me
this cry for help, her bushy tail cries for help
her ears turned to see if i will cry, if i will nudge the carrot
into her mouth, forcefully
"exactly what i needed," Leo
says as she massages his back (to be
honest he is hoping she will go further
press her hands under the black material)
they have been dating for months now and
come to the point where they simply long for each
other's skin like sunbeams in cafe windows and
the last drop of tea
i cannot be held accountable
for my actions
they flow from me
they fly from me
like sparrows on the trees
i release them like breadcrumbs
and they are gone
do not trace them back to me
like a spinning top
spouting off arms and legs
and limbs
i do not hold the answers
i do not hold the truth
do not hold me (accountable)
derailed
her hair was disheveled
and her teeth were cooked
and she walked curved
in circular river motions
veering left and right
as she shook
pennies falling out of her pocket
pencils falling out of her coat
she walked halfway across the street
then turned sharply
on the zebra crossing
and went left
she snapped
under the lights
the two beams formed knives
that split her right down the middle
she had been thinking
of life
of college
of love
of lust
of how she could possibly consider
all the things that she needed to ever consider
there was joy in the cracking
she finally learnt what lay beneath her skin
i stretch an octave
splayed out across this couch
play the lettered keys under me
in time
my eyes are closed
and my skin is bare
all the tones of tan of olive
green of cobalt blue and canary
yellow that my painting teacher
swore to us lure
within the creases
locally grown
in my home
i was birthed on this
paisley couch
that i drape my limbs
on lazily in the summer
(that we lay on breathing heavily
secrets into each other's skin
wrapped in our own understandings
and desire)
i cannot stray to far
from this living room
as your arms entrap
my sides
where there's a will there's a way
and there's a way to force one's will upon another
it was dark at the party
and his breath was hot and fast and dirty
like the kebab carts on the street
and the sticky air that slinks out of the old subway
car doors in the city summer
his breath smelt dark and dank
like my grandfather's cellar
smelt of rats
of rat poison
of nothingness
i hated him in that moment
i hate him still
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