Yung & Easily Freudened

na. | June 29, 2010

an adaptation.

You lie shivering in a paper dress,
and suddenly I can’t look at your thighs, your legs,
the threat beneath each
perfect ounce of flesh. How can I take care
of what I can’t see? Too much
of a naise thing and I think of you, of
beard and salt, sweat, spit, curls, the way this won’t
go on forever. I switch off the lights to leave,
waking up in the darkness of that Monday morning,
where each part of you I take into my mouth
gets a goodbye kiss. Soon even consciousness
will be terrible. Your father speaks about hunger,
I want to tell him you’re immortal.
I want to tell you more than just I <3 you, that
I can barely believe in our bodies,
that we’re made of water, that we trust
our skins, that we believe this dream
of insolubility, this promise: I won’t
swallow you. What is there to love
but your symptoms, flushed cheeks, hazelled
eyes, constellations of freckles, frantic
feverish heart? I run my nails down
your spine, inhale your ears, lay my fingers
in the spaces between your ribs, and on the eastward bus, try
to remember that sobbing too
is a system functioning perfectly, that longing
is nothing without loss.