There are bones in my body that were already broken
before I even slid out of the womb. The doctors had to rearrange my limbs
inside the walls of my mother’s stomach to form a makeshift splint
out of my own fingertips; that’s how I came out knowing
that love is a lot like healing with the cast on backwards.
The first girl I ever slept with said I loved like a bundle of knives
and every time we kissed
she had to check the inside of her mouth for stab wounds.
The second girl left when the forest inside my body
evolved into a forest fire and tried to burn through the silences
between her sighs whenever we were in bed together.
When I tried to swallow every secret hidden inside the crawl spaces
of her marrow like love notes, she said it was time to go.
To this day bone scans always remind me of unsaid things.
And there will never be anyone else who tests the waters of love
the way I do: no temperature check, just a headfirst dive straight in.
Maybe I’m in the process of learning how to dip my feet in first.
Maybe I’m not, but maybe that’s okay too.
There are snowflakes tucked into the inner lining of my ribcage
that melt whenever someone brushes my hand,
and I just want to figure out how to blizzard without turning into a puddle.
The third girl l ever loved was afraid of how I occupied
my own body unapologetically. She kept wanting me to say sorry
for taking up space, unless it was inside her.
So I tried to take up the universe instead
but it was no match for the way my love threatened to take over the stars.
I just want to find someone who will swallow me whole
so I can stop trying to bury them inside me.