A martyr’s crest


My fingers got lost in your hair
While your head lay on my chest
The cadence of my heartbeat
Lulled you to sleep
I never held anyone before
like this
doesn’t exist
I’m a ghost
playing dress up with these sheets
with words only I can see
Tomorrow I dreamed this
We’ve never even met
My eyes never consumed you
Our fingers never entangled
I never tasted your lips
or felt the warmth of your breath
on my skin
This bruise on my arm
the one on my neck
the one I have made of my heart
all counterfeit
A martyr’s crest

The cruelty of unrelenting senses


I’m in love with a man
who exists only in my bedroom
An hour from now
He is a memory
that has left traces
Rustled sheets
An abandoned wristwatch
Missing underwear
These things do not make up a man
I want more than the scent
that lingers after he turns his back
I want more than the emptiness
of a waking dream
or the embrace of an uninhabited pillow
The weight of a masculine arm
The flame that fuses flesh to love
A conversation of kisses
These things make up a woman
An hour from now
They are delusions
that leave marked contradictions
on my skin
An hour from now
I am left only
The cruelty of unrelenting senses