moon-finder

i fear ghosts have settled in my spine. i feel fingers, whispers of sensation as they smooth over the cracks in my hips and the bumps along my back and they scratch out the dirt from under my fingernails. they insist on combing my hair and licking along my eyelids. they grab into the corners of me find fragments of used-to-be's and wants and needs and fears and they dust them off with their sleeves, find the ones that catch best in the light and place them on the shelves behind my ribs.i wonder what they do with all the rest.

she smiles and her teeth are an off-shade of the right white and she has scratches under her armsin between her thighs the scars have healed but maybe she'll replace themribs unwind themselves the bones prickle through the surface and they split everything in half and it's openthe universe crawls its way in curls itself into the corners her fingertips her elbows her ankles if only her knees knocked together in that way that makes musicif only she wouldn't shake why does everything hurt one, two, three four hundred spoonfuls of sugar wouldn't hurt anyone anyone at all clear the mascara off your handsconnect the dots lining your spine swipe...

if only i knew where it ran off to.i didn't think love to be so slippery and quiet.if only i had heard the sound of it trickling out of veins and soaking the soles of your shoes,i would have been prepared.but i wasn't, because i never listen, and your steps were soaked as you walked up to me withyour hands reaching to take back the heart wrapped so beautifully in my chest.