I don’t know what I’m doing.
It’s like someone has taken a cookie cutter to me,
The ones with the ripple edges
always looked sharper
somehow.
Hope has left a hole in me,
punched straight through
by my own soft palm.
I wish I could be someone you want:
the picture of us I’ve painted
was growing faint
at the edges.
I can’t ask for delicate affirmations to
fall into my lap,
soothing my own jealousy like small pearls,
soft and round and rolling around my ears.
I don’t want to make a liar out of you,
pulling truths through too small holes,
distorting them into strange shapes,
distorting your “I don’t want”s into,
“Maybe I will”s.
When I am done trying to feel numb,
When I am done removing the cotton from my ears,
which when arranged spells out,
Hope,
I’ll meditate to you.
To the feeling of the slight movements you make right before you fall asleep,
to the sound of your breathing, in all its different forms,
to the image of us, arms looped around each other as if it’s the easiest thing in the world,
to smiling and smiling and smiling while I kiss you,
and just feel lucky,
it happened at all.
