Your rough face: a monologue

Your rough face stains my skin

Blood red and flushed.

Swollen lips

Tender and pure.

Salty waves

Harassed by a swollen smoke

A smog

Floating down

Forming blackened lungs and chapped

lips.

Your cinnamon cynicism

And my supple sweet

Intermingle and deny an existence of

others.

My fingers scraped, my palms cool.

I never wanted to be ripped apart

Except in that moment

When I couldn’t even stand

The thought of myself.

I foretold your lovely limits with

brutality.

I saw you in dark rooms

Black sneakers

Tousled hair

Cold, white skin

And salt bitter lips.

I pictured your t-shirt

And followed you through blue and

black nights

In a checkered bedspread.

Sharp silver

And staticky screens.

You looked up at me

And I swore in that moment

To do whatever you asked.

New Theory of Colours by Mary Gartside (1808)