Sticking Two Together, Like We Don't Know How

It’s hard to heal in a place that broke you

until you realize every place you touch takes

part of you.

I’ve been taught the art of taking what you can get.

Of grabbing onto the people that you know will burn you

because that’s better than having no scars to show.

Better than showing up, storiless,

dry eyed and untouched.

In the precursor to a mediocre sunrise,

you can trace the way the mountains kiss

the sky like collage and honey.

The backdrop is too perfect for me.

It looks the way my body has fit against the men

who have given me skin--

high contrast and unmistakable.

Next to me lies the first boy I’ve told myself to love.

Asleep and taking up the least amount of space for once,

he snores mistake and I wonder why no one stopped me.

Right now, I am thinking about the view,

about how he is going to wake up and ask

me what I’m thinking and get annoyed when I say nothing.

Right now is the point where I could run.

Enjoy the damp, pale morning like lavender

and learn about the ways I make myself happy.

Right now is the moment where my life feels perfect

and heard and the world spins next to me.

I think about love and how much of it I give to people

who can’t handle it or don’t want it.

How I will replay this moment many times with him,

with different men in the future--

all with eyes like sunrise on cloudy days.

Too fixed on ownership to watch them

become lessons in front of my eyes.

Too enamored by the view to pull myself away.

I don’t know what a lesson feels like

until I’ve ignored it a few times.

This one tells me about being too.

Too much woman.

Too much distance and not enough force.

If a man says you are too good for him--believe him and run.

The women with sandcastle skin say I’m lucky.

Ask me for tips on how to be worthy of something more

than a meal, how to get the white men to look at them.

At least you have options they say, and don’t realize

I am just guessing which man will hurt the least.

They tell me I should be grateful men take things

from me because to them I have something they want.

Something they think I have--

either I am a natural or they get so caught up in the fantasy

of who they want me to be

it doesn’t matter if I don’t enjoy the moment.

In the dark, they can’t see me roll

my eyes or see my head

resting on my hand.

It is when we make a horizon

I realize how much of this is a favor.

How this was a good idea until it happened.

All I want is to be loved, but it’s too hard

the way I set up valleys between everyone else and me.

Half hoping they stay away.

Half hoping I see someone in the distance

hiking towards me, so I can meet them.

On the way, I hear my mother echoing in my ear about this job,

this woman’s work.

Men will always be memories next to me

until they show me they are real.

Show me it is possible to love and not waste time.

Until then, I will continue to watch sunrises

from the next man’s window.

Watch lessons form next to me.

I don’t know how many times it’s going to take me to learn them.

Hopefully they all have great views.