the one cool night of summer

I felt the craving in the roots of my teeth, in the roots of my hair. The craving to be awake, to run and not let my lungs or my ankles stop me. The prickling pull of sleep pressed into my right eyelid heavily, churned and begged for my fist to rub and rub and rub. The greatest relief is always itching your eye until it feels like your eyeball will be smashed into jelly.

I caressed the cold air by arching my back against it as it slowly creeped into my window. A cold breeze, the smell of the air filtering in through the screen the sweetest smell I know besides that of human skin. I miss smelling the skin of an arm slung over my shoulders in the morning, but tonight I did not miss any person who has held me in that way. I only missed their smell.

In the book I just finished, I knew the twist ending from page one. I knew she was dead the whole time and I waited for the twist to unfurl itself so the rest of the reading world would catch up. In the same way, I knew he would cheat from the first flick of his tongue against my ear lobe. In the same way I know that summer will blessedly melt to fall in what feels like no time at all.

via *

ceramic skin

You had a penchant for breaking plates
when things got tough, you said.

Now remember staring across at me, through
the hope of candlelight, cradling promises
across to me on your lips.
You look like porcelain. milky skin;
soft. white. clean.

Now remember laying in my bed,
never quite believing I was real, you said.
Your tongue marbleized, crystallizing
around mine, melding me to you in
the most beautifully cruel way.

Now remember when your digital
secrets found me, even as my love
grew. Sharper than actions are words.
Sharper than the needs shaped like you
lodged into my ceramic skin.

Even then you were graduating to breaking porcelain dolls;
your specialty changing from plates to people.

via *