do not : call him

you're sipping on the taste of his tongue through the ice cold water 

you hold fragile like liquid

crystal in a hollow cup and its

-4 outside but all you can feel is the heat behind your eyelids as your skin crackles

papery soft whispering to your cheek to 

calm down 

and you make note of the holes in your mouth and the

cavities in your chest and the gaps between your thighs where

he stubbed you out like a cigarette

and everything is warm warm warm even though when you breathe

(if you are even breathing)

there is a cloud of white that 

evaporates into the air

and it burns burns burns in your stomach like the acid is taking a trip 

up

your throat and barefoot and naked you lay curled

upon the grass in your front yard willing strangers

to watch you moon bake

and the taste of his hair litters your pillows and you wish you didn’t

have a name that he could have ruined

like your bed

at 4am one summer morning 

and all the people in the street 

heard it 

not as a name, but as a 

prayer

and your mother sits you down at the table and makes 

you tea and you sip it softly until it too, is cold

when your hipbones dig into the mattress at night, 

when the trees bend and dance into each other, 

when the man at the petrol station looks like

him, 

when the shower water is steaming upon your skin, 

do not call him 

dreaming of: extra sleepy days, muted tones, soft light, a good book, nice company, rain, sleep

/grime/

the dust covered the pavement like the fine layer of grime

upon his skin that you could smell

days after letting him touch you

and you wash         

                                    scrub       

                                                       scrub

                                    wash

                                                      repeat

but you still reek like his greasy hair

the sweat that

                                    dripped

off his forehead

onto

your lips

you place your foot right over the cracks because

you want to break your mother’s back

her face 

                                    hands

                                                      mind

that told you,

you deserved this

salty lips and sandy feet and you crawl into the bottom bunk after

swimming naked

milk

skin 

aquamarine glimmers in the

waves

and he places his body between you and the light so that

all you can see is the dark human like figure instead of

one hand around your throat

one between your legs

you’re trying not to cry

and like a broken record you say,

(but you think he heard it like a plea to keep going)

afterwards you’re sitting in the leather backseat of a car and

you can feel the tears are finally coming but you don’t let them

a pool

of water

reflecting a rainbow made of

oil

sharp bones dig into the sheets at night and you lather

vanilla

cinnamon

tangerine

scents onto your skin

but your pillows and ribcage still

stink of him

sweetheart

                                                                                                            honey bun

                                    sexy

                                                                        darling

the words reverberate against the sky

the windows shatter as the voices fade out leaving

you barefoot and lost on wet asphalt somewhere around the start

of june

the next time a boy touches you

you curl your body like a mantis and he asks why you’re

shivering

                                                                        (it’s not cold)

but it’s so cold here in my body

always so