tender touch

Can you, could you hold my hand for a minute?

Please

I need to stop myself, stop the picking and clawing.

Please

I don't want my fingers to be raw and unhinged,

On life support 24/7.

It's not fair on them

Please

Could you, can you just look at me a moment?

Please

I want to explore the galaxies you don't see in your own eyes.

I want to think about the things I could never say to you,

And whisper them into your heart, just briefly.

Please

I so desperately want to be vulnerable; free.

I want to spill myself open

To let you carefully piece together the 3D model of my every atom.

Please

I just know you'd be perfect at it.

Please

Can you, just for a sec, listen to my heartbeat?

I want to confirm that it's still there,

But every beat has a meaning you don't completely understand yet.

We'd need a few more years to get to that part of me, honestly.

Please

Don't turn away, c'mon. I'm a game to play, a mood to swing

There should be some fun here somewhere,

I only forgot how to smile for a couple of days

But the dark spiraled quickly into fluorescents,

Isn't that enough?

Please

I thought you'd have cracked my jellyfish spine by now

And finally given me permission to glow in the dark.

Please

I'd hoped, foolishly, that you would not see what I carry

The very becoming of my snakeskins and stitches

I'd prayed that if you did, you would only offer to dress the wounds with a paste you made with dried flowers and honey.

I won't explain how they hurt me. Why it always hurts.

Please, stop looking at the blackberries.

They aren't as sweet as you like them

They are bitter with remorse,

Heavy and dark with soot. I don't want you to choke and die.

It'd be a stupid thing to do, right in front of me.

Because I wouldn't know how to react.

I'd probably think about Shakespeare

And the daggers he put into Romeo and Juliet's arms

How they realised their life wasn't worth it anymore.

Please

Could I not have a moment of silence for the lost things?

The things we don't see in this world easily,

What we wish could be found.

I want you to see my reflection as I do

The picking of the fingers,

The rawness as it begins again.