bone

by Yrsa Daley-Ward

a potential tragedy, a stunning unborn disaster. Should I touch you, I will suffer and you will suffer and she will suffer.

But I might.

Those dirty, bloody attractive things.

Some of us love others badly, love ourselves worse.

Tricks the body. Kills the body. Dances wild and walks away, smiling.

As if we never learned to eroticize our rage, to block out the screaming of the gut.

and we are falling into something we will soon mistake for love

The difference between attraction and compatibility how it kicks you in the belly every now and then.

Until you put soft leaf to lip touch tongue to flesh, bite the lobe, swallow the juice she says will purify you until you open it up, sigh at the color, see its very middle and learn what fingers are best at

Not in a café on a dusky street at midnight. Not with her. Never with her, or anyone like her.

I miss you in tiny earthquakes in little underground explosions my soil is a hot disaster Home is burning. You’re a lost thing.

I was raised pulling food out of earth. I know where joy comes from and how to make it.

Something for my wall

You told me I was strange and kissed me

Last night you gave me space to dream bigger than the single bed.

Sweetness

You laughed in your sleep and I cried in mine

I am the type of woman who is already teaching my heart to miss yours without failing

Like the sun and the moon

but I am already searching for a place to run to and hide when you say, Uthando lwami. I’m ready. Are you?

and maybe you have imagined me.

So far away

Stop trying to die. Serve your time here. Do your time.

Three years and I can’t undo the problem of your scent.

My clothes and my hair

understand and all of the things you don’t like how I will love you forever but probably from afar

“I will love you forever but probably from afar” like an invisible string tying your heart to mine

Love is not a safe word. But it’s the safe things that kill you in the end.

Regret not loving

One day I will tell you what I’ve been. It will scare you.

Days when I so want to kiss you but your mouth is sour and my thoughts are bitter and I’m angry, just mad, just crazy with it all but we are each other’s home sweet home, Love.

The worst thing about somebody who betrays you, somebody who turns out to be a completely different person to whom you first thought, is the love that you still feel in your heart for them, embedded so deeply into the narrow spaces of yourself that you cannot access it to try and remove

The webbing of my being

hold me, you. firmly, because all I’ve known how to do so far is leave

I’m frightened I might be happy. Dig your nails in. All I’ve known how to do so far is walk.

You are one of life’s anomalies and this is how I fell.

I’m beginning to miss you terribly, by the way. It’s a stunning day up here despite the rain.

I’ll never understand you, but my God, how I want you. You happen very suddenly before I have time to do what I usually do to stay safe. I try it all, to find you arrogant, dull, unkind. Nothing works and I dream you up

Smile. Smile with all of your teeth, even the rotting ones. Even the rotting ones.

Vulnerability

I cannot find the God you serve and I have been known to stay out all night, searching.

It’s never too late to be wise. See how your spirit has been fermenting.

Seize that loveliness. It has always been yours.

Today is the first day of the rest of it. Of course there will be other first days but none exactly like this.

Also for my wall