skin

i can’t blame my skin. 

so white and pure and unscathed because  it’s not protecting me on purpose. Besides  even the beating of my heart isn’t deep enough. I know what i want to hurt  lies beyond the rivers and roads of arteries and veins, i have a tiny heartbeat in my thumb.  she can’t direct me to where i need to go either.

 and now it’s midnight and i’m in new york.  12 storeys up and counting, with my bare feet placed on the cold ledge outside my window. i used  to smoke here, and watch the skyline through the flickering spark of a cigarette, morphing the shadows of my face into shapes i could not recognise.  that version of myself seemed far more comfortable. i bet  she doesn’t feel all the clothes on her skin trapping her until her lungs can’t breathe. 

  so i undid my shirt and fed it to the night wind.  watching it swim through the starlight like a jellyfish.  i knew that silk blouse would go on more journeys than i did.  and i imagined the faces of the people in the morning, pausing to wonder how this shirt ended up in a tree on 34th or under a car in brooklyn.

i would apologise to the stars  for bearing the pieces of my broken soul to them, but there’s so many there to listen and  i’ve never had an audience of my own.  my voice won’t reach them for millions of light years  so when it does  i hope they know the answer to whether  12 storeys is enough to not be alive when i hit the ground.

at least then they won’t be able to blame my skin. no matter how many cuts and scrapes she did all she could.  the only person who didn’t

was me.