STARLESS EYES

Your Finger-painted Tattoos are Still on Me

I remember the night you asked me why I didn't let you say you love me
I was trapped under a blanket of scratchy wool that had left me with splotches of red blossoming across my body
My hair was knotted and oily and your hair was half-sticking to your forehead in a matted clump of gold
"I look like a nest of wasps stung me," I'd stammered as I peeked at my body
You'd sighed
You'd been sighing a lot recently. Every time I deviated from the question you sighed. And it made my heart hit my ribcage and slam over and over into it.
It wanted to reach through the spaces between my bones and crawl it's way across the space between us.
"I'm gross,"
I'd whispered looking at the rash and bumps
"Wait here"
You'd left the bed and when you returned you threw the blanket off of me
I clutched at myself self-consciously until I realized you were holding a marker. Suddenly I wasn't sure what was worse: discussing love with my heart ready to run into your chest and beg to be held hostage or you seeing my body with the lamp's yellow hue and the red hives all over
But when I tried to say no - I watched you grab my arm and draw on one of the patches.

I spent the rest of the night being decorated in roses, tulips, daisies, and lilies with your fingers being the stems and the roots that held me afloat and anchored. And when it was over your mouth became the secret ingredient needed to make my flowers bloom. Like stamps held tightly and then smudged by water, our skin mapped out the pattern of flowers we engraved into the night.

I had never felt more beautiful.
I had never wanted you to stamp my limbs with your touch and my hair with your lips and my thighs with your teeth more than the morning when I saw your skin smudged in ink.
I never wanted you to say you love me more
I didn't hear my heart shatter a rib trying to get to you