Prying dead skin from chapped lips and cracked hands,
picking out each strand of hair, pulling apart the split ends,
losing balance from pins and needles and unused muscles sitting still,
I want to erase your thumbprints’ indents between my knuckles.
Thirsty, I ache to drown once more in my homely oasis,
to bask in your painful presence, to fall back down.
Traversing burning deserts, parched, shriveling in dry heat,
I want to make it to a spring to drink from.
Ceramics’ paint chipping, ceiling leaking, lamp flickering,
this is not home. My mirror’s reflection looks off;
her mouth won’t open, yet tortured, she shrieks.
I want to rest nestled among the wrinkled linen sheets of a familiar bed.
Windows collect dust and white tulips wilt and water still exists:
boiling until it spills, seeping into my arms, burning the tendons.
Instinctually I cry for only you. A cry for help, a death wish.
I wanted relief: alleviation, destruction its prerequisite.
