nothanx

This is why.


I washed him off my skin yesterday,
the scalding water burning away this weekend, but the feeling under my skin lingers.
It rolls underneath like water breaking against the coast, crashes, and then recedes to my fingertips.

It burns, sparkles, fades out, and I run my hands down my thighs;
I trace the black and blue marks I only noticed were there when I got home, and undressed.

I push into the bruises shaped like hands. It hurts, and it's the best kind of ache.
Under my eyelids, I see fireworks, the thunder ricocheting of the skyscrapers,
and a little boy whispers "I'm not looking!"

I wonder if he'll fall asleep to the smell of cotton candy and summer and sweat.
I'll be seeing a girl with arms outstretched, and birds landing in her hands, as the waves crash into my shoulders, legs, ears, and then recede.
Again, again, and again, I defy gravity, I defy distance, I defy everything.
The water streams in rivulets down your back.
Your hands shake, my thighs shake, my heart stops, and starts again. Again, and again, and again.