Blue Thread Where Skin Once Touched
The sheets still fold to your shape when I turn in my sleep, like the ghost of your spine stitched deep in the cotton,
and there’s lipstick on the pillow I won’t wash off, though the stain dried months ago, maybe longer, maybe never,
and I talk out loud to the air where your voice would cut me, call me out, crawl inside my lies and leave me raw.
There’s no shame in the weight of your hand still bruising my memory, no shame in the way I let you,
even begged for it, even when I said I hated how you owned me, how your name fit my mouth better than food or breath.
You wore your love like a knife tucked under your tongue, waiting to flash the second I got close enough to kiss you.
Every promise we made had a crack in it–either yours, or mine, or both–but we kept building towers on fracture lines,
and maybe that’s why I still dream of the fall more than the climb, more than the view from your chest when I exhaled.
You never looked at me like I was whole, you looked at me like I was worth burning, worth wrecking,
like if you hurt me enough, I’d finally feel something clean. And I did. God, I did.
Nights with you weren’t comfort, they were confession, every gasp a sin spelled backward,
and we prayed in whispers, knuckles biting into backs, hips dragging each other down like anchors learning to swim.
Love meant never hiding, and I showed you everything–every scar, every lie, every fucked-up piece I’d carved from myself.
You said “good,” and kissed me so hard I forgot who I was before I met you, before shame was a coat I took off and burned.
I don’t want the good days back. I want the ugly ones, the ones where we broke each other down like addicts sharing the last vein.
There’s beauty in that kind of surrender, in the war of skin and breath, in knowing no one else ever got that close to the fire.
We were fucked up, but we were honest, and in a world of polished smiles and polite exits, that’s holy.
There’s no shrine for the kind of love we made–just cracked mirrors, unwashed sheets, blood on the back of a ringless hand.
I carry you still, not in forgiveness, but in truth–in the muscle memory of how you held me,
in the way I don’t flinch when the lights go off, since the dark never scared me–only the silence after your voice left.
And I’ll never call that shame again.