Stretch

I look at my neck in the bathroom mirror. Turn my head side to side to watch the muscles extend. Run my fingers up and down the ventricles that beat under the skin. I look for a mark, a bruise, a scratch. I look for any proof of presence, a body of evidence. I check down to my collar bone, over the soft spot between it and my shoulder(my favorite place to be kissed, though I would never tell you). I stretch my neck upward and lean my head back- nothing.

Do I want there to be something? Do I want the capillaries to be bursting under the skin where your mouth lay? Where your teeth grazed over the flesh? Do I want there to be a print where your fingers laid? A palm shape left where your hands rested, combed, rushed over? Am I looking for the symbol of the moment, of the realization that it happened, that it was true? Do I want the physical demarcation of passion, of memory, some small fragment of some shared night that may never happen again?

Nothing.

I peel off my clothes to climb into bed, and I think I can smell you. But i've changed clothes, I've taken a shower, and I know that it isn't true. Do I know what you smell like?

This room is so quiet, the apartment is so cold. I dig myself under the blankets, tuck my toes under the sheets, and run my hands down underneath me to cultivated body heat. I turn off the light and there I am, in the familiar bed, soft sheets, over-fluffed comforter, soft light coming in from the parking lot outside.

All this time, and I'm still not used to sleeping alone.

Has it been that long?

I run my fingers along my neck again, feeling my heart beat through my throat. To think there's all this thick blood running through me right underneath this thin membrane, blood that's moving much too fast, blood that's weakened the heart, blood that travels to the limbs that travels to the brain that sends nerve impulses across the synapses to back to the heart that makes me think of you.

Think of nothing.

I used to be afraid to sleep in rooms this dark.

<3ashes

All I know is that you're so nice

All she was thinking about was how much she didn't want to think about this. How quickly she fell into old habits, how those metaphors of drug addiction came so easily on days like today. She felt a little bit highschool, a little bit younger, like maybe she hadn't learned as much about herself as she thought.

How many times had she had to leave her feelings on rooftops? How many times had she tripped and willed herself to get back up because by god, that's what you're supposed to do. How many times had she whispered in some dark place "This isn't going to exist in the morning," and she had been right. How many times had she quieted the voice inside her that said "Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop."

She told herself feeling something wrong was better than not feeling anything at all.

She's pretty sure she's written this before.

She's been off the stuff for months. No hands, no writing, no kisses. Is that why she hasn't written? Does she have to be wretched with emotion to get anything onto paper? Does poetry only come from being afraid? From being unsure? From being lonely? Does the good prose only come from those drug-addicted places, those metaphors about trucks headed toward her in the street. Does the real, gritty self-expression only come from those rooftops or bedrooms or front porches or that overlook when you were 15 or the backseat of his car or the stairs where he walked away or that house that wasn't finished being built or the rocks or the river or those hundreds of millions of places where whispers were the loudest thing you could hear. All those places where she'd been, where she'd said those things and felt those things that she kicked herself for weeks after feeling.

She's being silly. Some days she loves herself for the way she feels, she loves herself for being so eager to feel, eager to hold, eager to make something out of nothing out of less than nothing

Someone told her once that if they could pick a superpower, it would be to control people's thoughts.

Some days she wants more than anything the power to control her own.