#dinobitten

if i look at her too long, it's the worst feeling. it feels like there are little razors spinning at full speed inside my guts and it's a blender-- her mouth has this way it sits, and it's a way i know because back when i still had some stores of joi de vivre i could keep up that coquettish charm, too. sleek and--

the print of my mouth settles over the print of her lipstick like a marker tracing.

1

she's cherry-shiny, scarlet-bright, darkly-beautiful in a way i can't believe. i touch her, cup her jaw, devour her with my mouth like i'm starving. like i've never eaten before. i'm voracious and she's delicious, prey and predator to how bad i want.

when i wake up my phone is buzzing against my thigh and it's mercilessly scalding my skin. i have to get up--

the ache between my legs doesn't leave me. it refuses to. so i turn the water on a baptismal igloo-frigid and listen to the blasting cold water gush through the faucet. i wonder what she'd taste like and that's easy, easier, muffles the frenetic rising bubbles when i dip myself underwater and choke on starvation.

2

i regret it.

if you asked me if i regretted it, i'd say i regretted it. i'd say i regretted taking years of something careful, fragile, beautiful, and chose to carelessly discard it with the same furious hatred with which my mother could push my head from her lap. the way she it tasted like venom to grip all that beautiful vantablack hair and how i could get lost and how i wanted to, so bad.

i don't regret kissing her. be sure that's on-record. it means i would've done it eventually, it was just expedited. pain is a powerful motivator, but heartbreak has a kick better than tequila. i regret that it wasn't what it should've been; i regret that she deserves better and sometimes all she gets is camille preaker.

i think about that kiss. i atone for it every single one thereafter.

3

one of the girls is chattering about something i don't care to hear, but in wind gap it's just impossible to close your ears. my own feel hot; they feel like i've been packed into a box too tight. the air whistles through the trees and does nothing to quell how warm i am, but i find myself cupping her elbow to offer her a seat beside me with enormous care. it feels normal, to pay attention to her and to me.

i fold her hand up and steal a little token of something i hoard like a greedy dragon, a kiss i just leave at the back of her knuckles. i wonder if my glossy pink'll leave anything behind and that, too, feels as greedy as i'd like.

i don't let go of her hand between these insufferable white wicker seats. she's a lifeline. just her, there, just her tethering me tenuously to the tentative touch of my fingertips. it makes me think about the world around me. i feel it all drown; it all doesn't matter.

i kiss her palm this time, deliberate but, for once, not rebellious.

4

the relief won't find itself hot on its heels even if i'm pleading for relief, begging for it to overtake me, but relief won't help. relief is a black thing that's shriveled, unloved, something that gives up. right now, relief is the deceit of comfort. it's a way for the pain to stop.

her hands are all over my body. i cry out because her hands are all over my body. i scream because her hands are all over my body. i'm crying and i'm begging, but it doesn't matter, because then her hands are nowhere on my body. i soak through momma's duvet cover, slick with bile and sweat and now the sudden salt of her tears dripping into my mouth. my mouth, just pulling for air, trying to breathe like a pathetic newborn calf just pushed into a whole universe it's entirely unready for.

it doesn't make sense, but her lips are cool on my forehead.