work to elevate me just enough.

And i could've stayed for much longer. Tips of my toes planted in the ground. Barely breathing, scared to scare you off. And though I'm still walking carefully down back streets, the memory of you keeping my heels off the ground, as if ready to fall into the sheets once more, I'm hushing quiet. Another consolidation of a notsosecret want. Another wringing of the torn dry strands of paint keeping my vocal chords in check, making sure I'm nothing if not polite. Making sure I speak pretty, to keep new people alive, even as the old get dissappointed at the fake goddess crawling off the filthy muck they ever called an altar.

Playing each other's expectations, looking for the recipe against breaking, as if enough diet sweeteners could make the fall a bit easier.

Playing each other's wants, to feel like we found something worth having just for a minute before proven wrong.

Playing each other's thoughts to find out one more thing we never meant to be.

Playing each other's secrets, like the all the wrongs we ever did can be redeemed or justified or mourned.

But you, who know me, please keep me away of my own desire for cleanliness, even s you reaffirm the sadist belief that the smudges of dirt on my skin are no reason to stay.