Naked
I open myself like a trench coat, like a hustler in an alley,
I ask, insistent “What do you want? What do you want from here?” Tell me.
Let me know which rib you fancy, and I will lay it at your feet.
Tell me that you like the colour of my right eye and I will pluck it right out and lay it in the palm of your
hand.
My eyes mirror yours in your disbelief that I would strip myself so bare, right at the entrance of your home, right here, in the middle of it all.
I’ve been open like this for a while now, caught in the staring game between us; my insides cool, my skin raises. You touch it. You touched me. Gripped my arm by its’ skin, tight, so I can see the marks when you leave. But you keep it there.
You keep your palm and your fingers and your skin on mine and beg me with your lips and your eyes to put myself back together, and I do.
“You don’t want any?”, I gasp out, like a street-vendor desperate for a dollar.
You exhale and close your eyes, gripping the other arm, keeping me in place.
When you open them, I understand everything you don’t say, and my chest blooms forward from the fullness of your gaze.
Here’s what I remember
I am 5 and I am balancing a small foot on the palm of my father. He holds me up in the air, like a perfect porcelain ballerina.
I am 10, and scared, watching the new Harry Potter movie in the cinema, my dad next to me.
I am 13 and having a heated discussion about black holes over the kitchen table.
I am 15 and my dad is reading a newspaper at the beach. I am sitting on a towel next him, reading a book.
The breeze is warm, and we’re both tanner than usual. We’re of the same skin, my mother always says.
I am 18 and my dad is talking to me about driving lessons.
I am 18 and my dad hugs me on my birthday.
I am 18 and my dad is reading my college applications.
I am 18.
I am 18 and attending a funeral.
I am 19 and I am attending the same funeral.
I am 20. I am 21. I am 22.
I am 22 and I am attending a funeral everyday.
I am 22 and I am 5 and I am 10 and 13 and 18 everyday.
Here’s what I remember: all of it and not enough.
I really wish I didn’t have to.
Paradox
All my memories are dead cold,
icicles on a hunched spine.
The fall after the makeshift wings have melted.
The feeling of sea, hungrily engulfing a body spent in its own passion.
Vision overwhelmed by blue, blurring.
Heartbeat fluttering desperately, then slowing down,
halting.
The lungs choke once, twice.
The Body left facing the sky, sun rays caressing the dead, with whispers
of apologies. Of “almost” and “if only”.
All that is left is a body spent, a never-ending search of consuming warmth,
while the body lays,
frozen.
Dawn
We awakened in the meadow, as the sky turned pink, and the mist rose. We were laying down in the long grass, morning dew like a halo around your strawberry curls, peppering your rosened cheek, your freckled nose.
The first thing my eyes saw that morning was your mouth, parted softly, a renaissance angel in some painting. The sun rose slowly, stretched down towards us. Towards you, as if it missed your skin. As if it knew that your face should always be illuminated by the softest rays of light. That your eyes’ green comes alive like the forest in spring, under the morning light.
As you turned, as you stretched, as you squinted your eyes against the light, eyelashes batting, tantalizing, I remained breathless.
My body lost all sense of function, only my heart. My heart beat to the rhythm of the rustling leaves, of the chirping birds. It beat for you, relentlessly. It camouflaged itself into the sounds of nature, not to disturb your waking, the palpitations pleading for your touch on my skin once more.
When you finally looked at me, with the corner of your right eye, my lungs hiccupped. I could smell a wildfire burning within me. As you twisted towards me, reached for me, to pull me down back into the bliss, I let you. I let you, as what else could I have done? I lay there once more, by your side, looking back at you, as dewdrop fell down my face. Like a sigh. Like a wish. Like a prayer.
A softer sound
Today, it’s the softness of your breaths.
The licks of cold caressing your face
The steam, the condensation, the fog, the clouds.
Clusters of air and water and heat and maybe just a little pinch of soul.
Today, it is green.
Green like Ireland. Green like once upon a time
Green like fairies, green like laughter.
Green like grass blades leaning, whispering, sighing, moving, dancing, loving,
In the wind
Air and earth and water and sunlight, and this time, a little more heart than you thought.
Today, it’s all honey.
Sweet, slow, thick, vibrant and glossy.
Too much sugar and perfume and even more sunshine.
Baby, baby, baby.
Today, it’s love.
Soft and hard, hot, and biting-cold. Sharp as sunlight and round as the Moon.
It’s love, baby. Today, yesterday tomorrow and all the in-betweens.
It’s the ether and the world and the life and the death.
Baby, baby, baby.
Today is a sweeter music.
Today, it’s all for you
@saturnnina – Instagram
23 y/o amateur poet trying her best.