#ilifluous

i gave my body to boys that don't know how to love me,

barely know how to love it,

in the hopes of forgetting you.

or at least the pain you caused.

my body.

to boys who could barely bring me to brink of ecstacy,

who would leave me after they tasted their sweet saccharine.

i can't believe it.

body.

i gave my mind to one,

and he didn't really care.

he just wanted

my body.

body.

i gave my body to boys.

to boys i thought i could not nearly want as i much as i wanted you,

sweet girl.

and maybe it was true.

because i do feel sour towards them,

but i also feel that way towards you.

so to say i regret my time spreading my limbs would be a far cry from truth.

i wanted to remember things could be exciting,

other than you.

needed to remember the whole wide world is open.

just like me after you set me free.

body.

i let you have mine.

way more than you let me have yours

.

i don't know how to feel about that.

i think it might be kind of fucked up.

but,

just know.

you didn't ruin me.

i can still be desired.

and feel it too.

i don't know about loved,

but i try not to focus on that.

it's whatever.

(i think.)

everything feels sour.

i miss the cold.

though i barely remember it.

and to this day,

something calls me to go back.

i don't know why yet,

(i'm sure i'll find out)

but i just feel like here,

there's something i lack.

my cheeks are too rosy,

and my eyes are too big,

and i don't know it yet but over the years they will shrink.

while i expand.

but i can't picture that.

i can't picture that.

right now at age 5 i'm too preoccupied with how the world towers over me.

how it topels me on my feet.

and how i wish i could reach up and pull it down to cover me.

just like a blanket.

i just want to feel held.

but alas,

i am already too hot.

and entirely too short.

and that won't really change.

even with time my fingers will never begin to graze the sky.

and anyway.

it's not like i hope i'll ever know what it means to grow.

adults don't seem happy,

you know.

they tell me of their problems as they sit by me and hope i comprehend.

and i guess somehow i do.

i comprehend that i don't want to be anything like you.

there's alot of conversation i can't really join in.

and i think i'm supposed to feel happy but i don't

feel it.

i think the sun must be frozen in the sky because i feel small, caged, hot and closed in by time.

am i too young to feel so alone?

they are alot of people around me.

i know this.

it's hard not to notice.

but i still find myself sitting on the edge of my bed,

and staring at the tiles.

my toes don't reach the ground so i watch my feet sway.

i sit there,

and hear the voices that are close,

but feel far away.

i just sit and listen to them echo away.

and they kinda grate at my ears.

i wish it could be silent.

i don't why everything outside of my room feels so violent.

and as i grow,

i will be sad to learn that sentiment will not change.

for now though,

i will sit on the swing alone in the park and try to reach the sky.

i'll climb the monkey bars till my hands are red and calloused and dry.

it's just something to distract from everything else.

my lurching pulse reminds me that i'm alive and real.

it burns when i wash my hands,

and when i hold my pencil still.

but i don't mind.

i'll do anything to pass all the aching time.

there's alot i'm afraid of.

and i'm frustrated alot and try keep it in.

but i always end up bubbling over like a carbonated drink.

i hate when that happens.

i know i'm small,

but i hate being looked at like a kid.

i think i'm fighting for them to see that i am in fact,

expansive.

as i teen i'll still be fighting for that.

still kick my feet out to be seen.

like on the swing.

like on the edge of my bed,

alone and still.

my feet will be tired by the time i am an adult.

but for now,

i quietly scream that i am vast.

just like the sky i want to claim.

and whatever else i'm stretching and searching for that i don't know,

but want to name.

i think i always knew.

that there was more to everything than the heatwave.

i was born a bouncing bundle of tinted pink flesh to a woman who smells of baby powder and dreams,

under the pale monochrome skies of England.

01 wrapped me in it's arms and welcomed me to this wretched earth.

but the fact that i can almost still feel my tiny finger wrapping around yours as i wailed and sent all the blood flooding to my cheeks reminds me that this wretched earth can still produce memories and magic.

and i can see her now,

the hazy figure of a smiling nurse in the corner,

the only pixelated figure in the room.

donned in light cauliflower yellow,

she was the first flower i'd ever seen.

a sunflower.

and the sun was cradling me in her arms and pouring all of her passion and goodness into me,

our heartbeats synchronizing once and for all,

a spell never to be broken.

and that was it.

that was our moment-

forever.

prophecy of friendship fulfilled.

it will always be ours,

that moment.

even when it's old and fraying at the edges and i'm pressing it between worn pages of yellowing time.

it will always be precious.

and although the faint smell of antiseptic was our earthly ambience,

we were somewhere in the stars where the two of us will always feel like a climax in a novel.

somewhere where the two of us together are a peak in itself.

so,

i was looking with wide eyes drinking in the moment-

the time,

the love,

and blushing like a ripe mango out of simultaneous tangible and emotional warmth.

i was grazed and graced by the sun, after all.

with the moon behind the lense,

preserving time and capturing the moment,

the sun adding to our effervescent glows,

your eyes sung to me that one Elvis song.

love me tender,

love me sweet.

never let me go.

you have made my life complete,

and i love you so.

i stared up at you,

mesmerized by your halo,

and sincerely hoping my own eyes replied:

"it's so nice to finally meet you."

you tasted so good,

but you went so sour.

i met you, i loved you,

in half an hour.

it was too quick.

and i don't think i blinked enough.

and now i wonder where my mind goes when i put all of it into loving you.

you were blue and red,

then red,

then blue.

and can i be honest?

i think i hate being treated like a flavour.

like i can dissipate,

like how you disappear.

like i can just melt on your tongue before you get the chance to swallow me down.

like you didn't get to know me in 5 seconds

and decided it was 5 seconds too long.

i thought you told me i made your world burst with colour when you tasted me.

you could barely speak to me without being terribly disarmed,

rosy cheeks alight as red as your hair,

and then-

that turned into you barely speaking to me at all,

without a care.

how can i only stain your tongue but for a moment when i am so sharp, so pungent and such a riged red?

what is it about me that made you fled?

am i that easy to be rid of?

did i not choke on you when i took you in whole?

did you not deliberately tell me that i had your soul?

i thought we agreed on that.

how could you make me out to be bright and then tell me i'm black?

it hurts,

you know.

to let someone love you for all the things you used to wish weren't parts of yourself.

for all the things you felt like no one else could possibly admire, hold dear or come to love.

and then suddenly,

too suddenly,

have those things declared not enough.

not enough to make you stay.

but it's alright now.

because i think you burned my throat after i finally swallowed you down.

i consumed you,

i consumed you,

and you spit me out.

i have an unyielding hope. to somehow be. to make the world see. and it clings to me. like a fever dream. my mind will not let me forget.

there's a woman with a face. that looks just like mine.

she put me into therapy.

even says she loves me.

she put me into therapy,

after me explaining explicitly,

the ways in which i hurt.

the ways in which i hurt mentally.

this woman. 

i appreciate what she did.

for i have friends who have women

(not women with their faces, but women nonetheless)

who ignore that they have the comprehension to put a name to the ways in which they feel-

(depressed. low. ready to let life go)

for silly reasons like that they might have learned what it's called on the digital spherical wheel.

so, 

this woman.

that put me into therapy.

this woman.

is the same one that adds to the pain she tried to rid from me.

my mind is confused.

how do you look at me, oh woman?

and just walk away?

for goodness sake! i have your face!

i have your face, 

and you kindly sent me to another woman 

( i don't take it for granted)

for pills and grace.

and she gives me them,

and you try to dress me in frills and lace.

and tell me not to cut my hair.

you told me everything on your mind for years and can't look at me in the summer.

how in the hell could i possibly ever recover?

not even when i go back to the other woman,

with the room with the AC and the comfy chair. 

the woman with the pills and the grace and the wild hair.

not even she can help me repair.

not even she who encourages me that who i am is okay.

you used to try to do that.

i used to think you did a good job.

but if you did i don't think you would be a woman with a face.

just a woman with our face.

you tried though.

and it pains me to say it,

to even realize it,

(because i feel indebted to you)

but trying is not enough.

i wish i could write you a letter and address it:

'dear woman with a face'

and then say,

'i loved you heavily.

i even love you now.

but it's hurting me that i think i know what will become of our fate.

you see, i am thinking of severing the already severed.'

but you would cry.

so i won't send you that note.

but i will take all necessary action in invisible quotes.

i hate making you cry, woman.

but i've done alot of that.

and i don't think i know how to stop.

and you don't know it but i will forever resent that fact.

oh woman. 

who is now strange to me.

how have we shared our hearts before?

the flesh and blood.

i have your flesh and blood.

on my face.

even in my veins.

but now its a sort of wicked pain.

to look in the mirror and see you.

my hero turned villain.

and what a demise.

the only ways in which we speak now is how we surmise.

how we surmise and pick at each others thoughts.

because we can't even speak.

everything is now a feeble attempt to communicate.

when before we would SCREAM .

when before we would SHARE. 

when before we could sit and help one another with our HAIR.

woman with a face. woman with my face.

i miss you. and my heart longs to converse with yours.

but my mind stops me.

because the heart wants what will wrench it out of the chest it belongs in.

the chest in the body that you manifest in.

woman with a face. why couldn't you understand me?

do i not have your face?

everyone says it.

is it perhaps because we hate seeing the ways we are, when we see it in each other?

woman.

at least take your face and keep it.

if it's too hard to live while looking at you,

and i want to say you feel it too-

what's between me and you.

i want to be reckless and say how hopelessly in love i am with you.

i want to know this could be real-

what i have with you.

but then the sun rises and my dreams melt with the rays that glint on morning dew.

you carve my heart out in my chest and i willingly bleed for you.

i've thought it many times-

and i'll think it again,

but i'd let you ruin me.

let you walk all over me.

let you string me out for limited stretches of mind blowing passion 

(on my part, only in my heart)

only for you to shoot me down like a heartless hunter picking a dove for prey.

(inevitably, eventually-

because you'll figure out you don't love me the same)

part of me knows i'm everything you're looking for,

just maybe not in the form you'd wish.

but i'm here.

i wish you'd see me.

but i'm all amiss.

i have yet to fling this useless love into the abyss.

i just don't know what to do with it.

but when i do throw my hands out into the air,

(my heart clenched in a fist,)

and possess not a care,

it'll land next to all the love in the world i never properly pursued.

(there's not much.)

it'll hit the ground next to the childish boy with the smiling chocolate eyes who i'd thought was an angel,

(but was a coward in disguise)

thud next to the pink hearted girl with the poofy brown hair and lionheart

who asked me on a date too early,

land next to the tall, deep skinned star studded boy with an aura i could not ignore,

(whom i wish i could've almost forgotten you for)

startle the girl i had little interest in,

but told that i was over you,

jump the silver tongued boy who i'd let go in harsh radio silence, 

who called me captivating,

but lived a couple countries over,

(so what would he know? you would.)

and there i go again.

with you.

my mind circling back,

something like a whispering broken record player,

because i never shout my love to you.

but why do i always do this?

go back to you?

somewhere deep down i know it's because im wishing on you.

my dying star.

you keep my heart ajar.

pouring open for the love you cannot receive.

pouring open like a love you cannot perceive.

yet still i stood proud.

to have you as my first full fledged heartbreak,

my first mountainous love.

i said you killed like a hunter,

but to me you're still the dove.

you're still my half love. 

my half love. 

my beautiful dove.

no one else could ever compare. 

my particles are packed tightly.

i want to make you afraid of me.

skin pulled taut, eyes like marbled stone- black, shiny, endless- cold.

looks like i'm ready to pounce.

you shrivel at the sight of me,

and i swallow you up,

ounce by ounce by ounce.

my scent wafts out freely.

dark crimson red lightly bounces.

sails on to your nose.

i speak plainly and you think it's prose.

and i'm gold. and when i bare my teeth at you it's silver.

i'm ferocious when i smile at you,

and you fall into me.

as i glimmer.

you fall into me.

fall into a trance.

you fall for me.

and i you.

that's all we do, that's all we do.

lose ourselves in it.

lose ourselves in each other.

you're my lover, my lover, my lover.

but sometimes i get too heavy.

sometimes, i get too heady.

you become frail in my arms and wilt like the rose you are from the daydreams you have of me.

even though you are right with me.

dream about me you must.

because i become your lust.

like too much perfume i go to your head.

this high intensity.

could strangle you,

could kill you dead.

but you'll stand.

and you'll smile.

and sway on your legs,

and stare into my eyes.

and dream of me in the afterlife.