Green thumbs

Small flashes of violence,
your lips stained violet kissed silence
onto porcelain. Below wrinkled cheeks your chin
keeps time with your speaking
but I'm thinking more about how your grin
hides teeth that have ripped through skin onto bone -
and had I known beforehand, I'd've taken precautions.

Often lost in the way your fingers lingered over my spine
and divided my halves into yours and mine.
Chapped lips and bony hips crashing like a wave sinking ships
and thinking this is what it feels like when guilt trips
over his own feet.

Two particles meet.

Metaphorically dismembered, you'd never remember
to put me back in the order I was stored in, only
pour me back down the drain, again.

Prisoner in daisy chains,
though the days changed I stayed 
rooting deeper in your garden, guarded by
lost souls hiding behind the holes in your story.

I've wasted time filling these spaces
and placing back stories to nameless faces,
and bracing for the impact of you
cracking under pressure.

Hesitating when unfamiliar hands began
tracing rough plans along my waist
where dust and dirt had settled. 

I traded these things for guitar sting callous,
not as bad as what they'd have thought - 
I still got chills up my spine with blistered fingers
running over skin that's been trying to hide for so long
that it forgot that getting caught up and tangled
in someone could mean a good thing.