plight VI

I’m limp beneath your tempt
and your exchange is stoic.

​

but every time I pull from you, I walk to my car holding
my breath. My grip hooks on to the steering wheel and
this torrent surges upward; a rupture that blurs sight in a
quickening flood; a breach in my own vulnerability
which has been scratched sore—

​

and my chest aches, somewhere I can't rub numb,
somewhere I can't touch with my fingers. But I can touch
it with my lungs, which reach out for my ribs every time I
gasp, and I can feel this pain roll through my abdomen,
my throat close up around it's rise.

​

For you, oh—for you, I tip my gaze, squinted and batting.
For you, my cheeks flush. And I won't stuff down my
smile for as long as the eucalyptus is heavy in my nostrils
as it is heavy on your skin.

​

you have no idea; a scratch of true oblivion or

​

maybe ignorance, or maybe I'm a crook,

​

or maybe I'm worthless. I think I'm

​

worthless, and I don't know what love tastes of or what
the pursuit of chills up my exposed skin feels like but I
know this ache

in my chest, and I know this crushing in my
lungs because I feel plucked raw and naked

​

in my own vulnerability.

​

our exchange is stoic,
and my affection is hot on your skin.

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edited because the formatting got all screwy :)