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i cling to you

like hotel sheets in the dark—

wrinkled, damp with needing,

fingers curled

like i'm bracing for an earthquake.

you say you see me.

you say you believe in me.

you say you love me.

(i almost believe it too).

i offer myself in fragments—

little performances of trust,

stripped-down moments

where i kneel in silence,

hoping submission

might feel like safety.

but don’t ask me to stay soft too long.

i flinch when it’s calm.

i wait for the turn.

i let you peek

behind curtains i stitched shut

with blood and boundary,

into a heart that doesn't know

if it's a cage or a cathedral.

just a peek, though.

never the whole thing.

if you saw all of me—

you might run,

and worse,

the girl that lives inside me
still hums church hymns in the dark.
her knees bruised from pews,
not playgrounds.
she prays like a habit—
or maybe a haunt.

she retreats
into pink rooms and plastic tea sets,
lace socks and lullabies
sung in voices softer than the ones that hurt her.
mama watches from the hallway,
smelling like perfume and punishment.

they told me i was mature for my age.
but no one asked
if i wanted to grow up
in bloodstained sheets.

i was holy, once.
little lamb,
white tights,
skipping through scripture.
then came the wolves.

i wear red lipstick like armor now,
drag smoke into lungs
that once breathed in
only bubblegum and bedtime stories.

everyone talks about daddy issues,
but mine doesn’t speak.
just silence and static
through phone lines and memory.

mother would would call me
"damaged goods,"
but fuck her.
she drank her demons
i cradle mine
like a doll missing an eye.

and still,
there’s that girl inside me.
she lives in glitter and grape juice,
asks me if we’ll ever be clean.
asks if god still sees us
underneath the dirt.

surrendering myself to you

is not effortless—

it's a ritual of quiet violence.

i peel myself back,

layer by trembling layer,

offering soft, trembling parts

as if love were a surgery

and i the willing patient.

i hand you pieces—

my mother’s voice,

the ghost of a girl i used to be,

my trembling little heart in its paper-thin shell—

and i ask,

please, be gentle.

like a child clutching a daisy,

its stem bruised under tiny fingers.

but you take them

fast,

hungry,

as if love were a starving thing.

you don’t pause to see

what it costs me

to open like this.

and then, the ache—

the post-op nausea of wondering

what i did wrong.

did i laugh too loud?

did i say too much?

did i seem too eager, too sad, too anything?

i become an actress in my own skin,

rewriting my lines

to please an audience

that may never clap.

i want you to think i’m perfect—

a portrait under glass,

untouched by time or sorrow—

because if you see the cracks,

if you hear the echo in my hollow parts,

will the illusion dissolve?

will you disappear?

and maybe that’s the tragedy:

not that i’m trying to fool you—

but that i’ve been trying

to fool myself