The thing is...

i do not know how to not be this loud.

how to sit back and laugh like my tongue is dipped in cherries and honey

how to shut up and bite my tongue even when i should

i do not know how to stop halfway, how to back away from things that are not mine

i do not know how to not claim territory, 

i feel like no matter how loud i am people don't hear me

i do not know how to pretend that you haven't hurt me

i do not know how to make you love me.

i want to be a safe place for you

but i do not know how to dim this fierce thing i feel

you bring out all the sharp places in me, 

and i do not mean to constantly draw blood when you come to me for safety

i do not know how to be this person you want me to be

i do not know how to simmer.

this thing between us is cheap and vulgar but i fully bought into it knowing that

i stumbled upon you with hands covered in sin and alcohol

i wasn't expecting anything holy.

and i stay when you tell me that she's the well you have to drink from or you'd die of thirst

and i'm the desert.

i stay when you come to me with blindfolds and ease

i stay because you make my spine throb on your good days

and i stay because i wake up choked in tears on your bad days

and either way, at least you make me feel something

i stay because to stay stimulated even when i have no stomach for it, even when i want to crumble every time you reach for me makes me feel alive.

after my fifth glass of cheap wine

i forget that i can still taste her on your lips

i pretend that this thing is real and special

i can only love you when i'm drunk

only in the dark,

only on nights when i need to burrow into flesh

the thing is,

i stay because i cannot leave.

because where would i start picking up the pieces of your life you have left all over my couch?

which cities would i have to start avoiding?

i envy those women,

who smell like cinnamon and never settle for less.

i stay because secretly, i want to break your heart

i want to plant mines under your skin 

that i hope your future lovers find.

The thing is,

by God, i'm so tired of writing about you

and all the ways i'm breaking my own heart.

leggy.

Disappearing.

In a bid not to become your mother, you have become the women your dad fucks to remind himself what a real human being feels like.
he has turned your mother into a ghost of herself,
made her supplicate at his feet for years,
and left her to fuck women who are exactly who she used to be.
you are loud and opinionated and everything you think your mother is not.
she worries that no man will marry you
you roll your eyes and ask her if the years of marriage she wears with pride has done anything but suck all the juices out of her skin
but at night, when no one is watching, you worry that she's right and you are not the marrying kind.
you tell men that you are not the marrying kind
and they agree;
you are the woman they fuck after marrying the marrying kind.

The world is burning and you are burrowed into sheets.
He tells you that he loves you and you desperately want to believe it
but you don't.
you smile and tell him that he doesn't.
he is the softest part of your morning
the part where you wake up and watch him and he breaks into a smile sensing your gaze
and i know he makes love like he's the ocean and he's trying to drown you
his hips separating shore from water
like he has only ever belonged to you
i know that he feels like a spiked drink after many months of fasting
and sometimes the sadness requires you to burrow yourself into flesh to survive
i know he burns like he's the sun and you really need the light to walk you back into yourself
but baby, he's just the moon; stealing light sources and pretending to be radiant.
so you need to stop leaving the lights on and the doors open for him
he won't stay and he doesn't belong to you.

love,
leggy.