what do i look like without destruction dripping down my body?

i am golden.

left to lay in the sun;

my skin smiles and my eyes laugh

my fingers—"like a pianist," he says—touching every part of me with care,

with patience.

the half-moons below my eyes are only ever from nights i stay up reading

the tremors are only ever from the cold

the headaches only from the loud neighbour or a drunken night—

a glass of wine sipped slowly in the warmth of a sunset.

my edges aren't frayed

i stand on mighty, lengthy legs

i only cry at the sight of God-filled things

tragedy misses me by milliseconds

i do not participate in my own unbecoming.

what do i look like now?

brown eyes burnt red

brown skin burnt black from the fire of my ways—

how the singed love the flames—

mind turned rancid from the poison i have fed myself since that day in September.

the flowers were meant to bloom for me;

they withered as i did.

spring is a foreign thing to the isolated soul.

the half-moons below are only ever from nights i stay up thinking—

take me back take me back take me back—

the tremors from the horror of living

the headaches from the screams inside—

i'm a glass full of fermented demons;

take a shot and you just might survive.

i cannot touch myself with love anymore;

fingers meet my skin like ghosts coming home

an icy touch on boiling flesh

memories of men before—

what was it like, to touch me as if i were new?

take me back to the first day;

i want to love myself right.

i want to look destruction in the face

and make sure he does not look like me.