pretend .

you covered me with burnt kisses —
with siren songs
waving your heart outside yourself
like a beacon
but it was just illusion —
smoke and lights and mirrors
aimed at those with simple minds
and i came running.

you tore me down
not all at once but in strips
thin as paint
one room at a time
until my body was made only of
the most basic elements —
nothing of substance
nothing to hold up to the light.

you seduced me with lips that tasted of
clementines
and words that sounded suspiciously like
my own
recited backwards.

· · ·

i only wish i had learned to speak firmly without
sounding mean
i wish i had taught myself the art of
grace
in tension
and strength
in the sea of vulnerability you swept me into.

i only wish
you were everything i imagined
and i was the person i wrote as myself.

i wish
but we don't exist outside of the walls of what-might-have-been.

[don't listen to a word i've said
i've been crying bathtubs full
of crocodile tears since you left me.
trying to find the last shred of you
i lost somewhere inside these veins].

S.

{Photos: woronowska dorota Flickr; Laura Makabresku Photography}