you always tell me that my mouth
tastes like the zero-calorie soda that
i am completely and shamelessly
addicted to. it fills me up without filling
me out, i laugh back, kissing the
transparent skin of your eyelids.
you always liked skinny girls, right?
you let a frown pucker your face, and
that little crease in between your brows
makes me want to laugh and kiss your knuckles
and scrape my pupils off with razorblades so that
i will never see you unhappy ever [never ever ever] again.
i smile the best i can without letting the sobs break
through my white, ribbon lips. the next day i wake
up not to the sounds of your slightly congested breathing
but to the soft muffled groans of your crying. i don't ask
what is wrong because you probably just realized what
a fat, ugly whore i am, with my halo of dark, mussed hair
and lipstick smeared across my lips like the semen on my thighs.
i don't rub your shoulders and i don't kiss it all better, and you
cry and cry and cry till your vocal cords are just frayed pieces
of scratching-post material. i sit, letting anorexia plait
my hair with braids thick enough to strangle myself with, and your
shoulders shake like earthquakes or my numb fingers, until i
stretch like a lazy lion across your bed and cover your trembling lips
with my warm tongue. fucking under the light of our fading dreams,
i wonder, can you taste these words that i scream?