for emma

for emma

poetry camp clichés
and empty bug spray cans
your tongue-trailed voice
cradling clementine plastic
stroking a guitar - the last string snapping
with each heavy/soft/heavy word
her fingernails dancing on your thigh

your face is so delicate
all eyelashes and cheekbones and pink lips
that seem to betray the rest of you:
choppy bangs and stick n pokes on bare neck
flannels and wife beaters and

you are so fucking pretty
pretty in the way that for a week
i fall asleep imagining you
just plucking eyelashes off my cheeks
in the way that your eyes are always glazed over
focusing on anything without a heartbeat

i drip desperate hints like molasses
in all my poems
but you won’t look at me
tracing her palm
while my paper shakes

your words buzz against my frontal lobe
like mosquitos and a fever
like “i just swallowed something whole”
and like “i was twelve years old”

the last night once everyone had driven home
she asks for my pen to finish your water bottle bong
splitting cheap beer and stale brownies
you french braid her hair
you talk about home
you talk about making her scream
i cough out the window
and you roll your dilated eyes

sweating and bloodshot and dizzy
i float downstairs to my empty dorm room
bare mattress and a white cotton t shirt
i write about bugs
or teeth or dreaming or maybe you

she sends you to check on me
and you walk in without knocking
sitting beside me on the vinyl mattress
fingering the metal spinal chord,
you pull the poems off my lap
flipping through them you look at me with pity
dripping heavy from your eyelids

awkward conversation
and we have nothing in common
you say being a vegetarian is pointless
you say why are you trying to convince everyone you’re fragile?
you say open wide
you feed me pink pills and water
tipping the bottle upside down
laughing as it trails down my chin, pooling in collarbones

you say swallow
you say why are you staring at me like that?
you say elise
you say elise
you say what? do you want me
to fuck you or something?
you are looking into my eyes
for the first time
and i can feel my teeth rotting
smirking, you say answer me

so i whisper please

when you kiss me i remember how small i am
it’s all too quick
all trailing saliva and technique and smoke and open eyes
your fingers tugging at the hem of my shirt
before i have remembered to breathe
you throw it on the floor like it’s dirty

ive never seen so much skin sprawled out
but you wont even look at me
and i realize how many girl bodies you have seen
and how many you have made writhe
your mouth dragging against my ear
my neck
my sternum
my rib cage
you force down my hips when i arch my back
like it wasn’t part of the script
you trail down black lace and elastic with a slow thumb
cute you murmur leering

i think of childhood
and candles,
red roses, bubble baths
and virginity
i watch the fluorescent light
echoing off your fully clothed body
i picture you leaving on a plane before i wake up
i wonder your mothers name
i want to say ive never done this
and its all so lovely but

but my tongue is trapped
behind cavities and your lips
so i just whisper please
don’t
hands fumbling at your neck
tiny tears blooming

seriously?
im sorry
jesus
im sorry
its not your fault
but i should go

damp eyelashes and hugging my bare knees
you throw me my shirt
but you won’t look at me again
you walk quickly across the rubber floor
before murmuring “fucking
straight girls”
and slamming the door

when i wake up the next morning
you have already gone
to iowa or ohio or anywhere not here
but have left a folded piece of paper
under my door, scribbled messily:

“sorry
about the klonopin
& the leaving
i don’t really know what to do when girls cry
& watching you choke on beer & squirm
had me all blue balled & fucked up
here’s to hoping you are better this morning
& that you forget about me soon”