it isn't like what you see in the movies.
there aren't footprints chasing your heels,
to stop you,
to grab your wrists,
to hold you back.
it's liquid crystals
that drip and roll with such arched vertebrae,
you would think they were contortionists.
i used to contort,
with each ivory bone stuffed into
corners with uneven edges,
claustrophobically angled like
children's faces on sliding glass doors,
and fingers bent
to degrees they should never have met.
and in my head ran a line,
that repeated like late-night television adverts,
trying to sell me blueberry plants,
or exercise tapes
that would hollow my cheeks out, but make me happy.
or planes that string flimsy plastic promotions,
that get tangled like vines when
the wind hits their sweet spot.
or marathon runners crossing their finish line,
but on repeat.
and i never crossed the finish line,
but my personal advert, cellophane banner, and marathon
told me that i was comfortable.
it isn't like what you read in novels,
or in newspapers,
or chapter books with dog-eared pages
and spines with the waxy binding chipping off like stretchy snowflakes,
flaking into palms aged with lines,
like rivers on a map, and streets in the city.
lines like the strands of your hair,
or the light reflecting
off of your eyelashes.
lines like the creases of your face when
i watch you open your beautiful mouth,
and out falls words which i never,
ever,
believed i deserved to hear.
and it isn't like the off-beige pages,
that are grainy like
unexperienced photographs,
or whole wheat pasta.
it doesn't leave your hands with a film of
past lovers, past lives,
and former fingerprints.
but it keeps ink stains, and typos,
and instead of those pages that leave you feeling dirty;
i have pages as soft as your skin,
where you carry words
on your face,
stained with everything i long to read from you.
it will never be like what you see in the movies.
