swell

i tie my hair back when i leave your place to hold in the smell of your breath that laced up in the strands while i was sleeping against your chest. there was a dream within a dream within your hands. to be understood as to understand, to be seen as to see. to be or not to be the messier in this scene, that’s the question…or maybe that’s the lesson. maybe the answer was never honeysuckle or bonfires or crimson explosives. maybe that was all corrosive, fairytales. or root canals — necessary once the damage is done. spun out & strung out, convinced of an inability, a longing for stability that i could not deserve. served up on a splintered platter, convinced again i do not matter. that’s the damage. another man’s carnage, ravaged. all’s fair in love & war. all’s fair when the love is the war. so i tore pages from the wilted mythology. all the cryptic cryptology & fantasy — spoiled! the beliefs coiled up in my bloodstream, threatening to break free, swallow me, execution style. unleash the hounds, unleash the bile. & borrow my uncle’s time machine to escort me back to when i was seen. when i was raw & brave. revisit my chest plate before it had caved. on the floor of the trailer in the back of the lot where countless student films were shot. where i learned to play, where i learned to stay, where i learned to run away. & back to the future, the present, where you make a cacophony, a symphony, enclave. wrapped tight against you, i’m enveloped by waves. there’s serenity here in your bed, on your turf. it’s the sea, it’s the swell, we meet in the surf. the kiss of the ocean, lapping over me. i don’t want to have to try to un-be. surround me, engulf me, swallow me in brine. you’re pulling me in with the tide. i don’t want the moon to shift, i don’t want you to know. i want to stay here in the drift, my cheeks & heart all aglow. you smell of childhood dreams, of what my auntie said he’d be. you smell of saltwater & of reeds. i’d like to keep you close to me. i don’t want to give too much too soon, see i must pretend to save face. but i keep your scent like inheritance, tie my hair back when i leave your place.