Milk and Honey Read online

  i know. i know. your excuses make all the sense in the world. and i get a little carried away for no good reason and eventually begin crying. but what else do you expect baby. i love you so much. i’m sorry i thought you were lying.

  that’s when you hold your head with your hands in frustration. half begging me to stop. half tired and sick of it. the toxin in our mouths has burnt holes in our cheeks. we look less alive than we used to. less color in our faces. but don’t kid yourself. no matter how bad it gets we both know you still wanna nail me to the ground.

  especially when i’m screaming so loud our fighting wakes the neighbors. and they come running to the door to save us. baby don’t open it.

  instead. lie me down. lay me open like a map. and with your finger trace the places you still want to **** out of me. kiss me like i am the center point of gravity and you are falling into me like my soul is the focal point of yours. and when your mouth is kissing not my mouth but other places. my legs will split apart out of habit. and that’s when. i pull you in. welcome you. home.

  when the entire street is looking out their windows wondering what all the commotion is. and the fire trucks come rolling in to save us but they can’t distinguish whether these flames began with our anger or our passion. i will smile. throw my head back. arch my body like a mountain you want to split in half. baby lick me.

  like your mouth has the gift of reading and i’m your favorite book. find your favorite page in the soft spot between my legs and read it carefully. fluently. vividly. don’t you dare leave a single word untouched. and i swear my ending will be so good. the last few words will come. running to your mouth. and when you’re done. take a seat. cause it’s my turn to make music with my knees pressed to the ground.

  sweet baby. this. is how we pull language out of one another with the flick of our tongues. this is how we have the conversation. this. is how we make up.

  - how we make up

  when my mother says i deserve better

  i snap to your defense out of habit

  he still loves me i shout

  she looks at me with defeated eyes

  the way a parent looks at their child

  when they know this is the type of pain

  even they can’t fix

  and says

  it means nothing to me if he loves you

  if he can’t do a single wretched thing about it

  you were so distant

  i forgot you were there at all

  you said. if it is meant to be. fate will bring us back together. for a second i wonder if you are really that naive. if you really believe fate works like that. as if it lives in the sky staring down at us. as if it has five fingers and spends its time placing us like pieces of chess. as if it is not the choices we make. who taught you that. tell me. who convinced you. you’ve been given a heart and a mind that isn’t yours to use. that your actions do not define what will become of you. i want to scream and shout it’s us you fool. we’re the only ones that can bring us back together. but instead i sit quietly. smiling softly through quivering lips thinking. isn’t it such a tragic thing. when you can see it so clearly but the other person doesn’t.

  don’t mistake

  salt for sugar

  if he wants to

  be with you

  he will

  it’s that simple

  he only whispers i love you

  as he slips his hands

  down the waistband

  of your pants

  this is where you must

  understand the difference

  between want and need

  you may want that boy

  but you certainly

  don’t need him

  you were temptingly beautiful

  but stung when i got close

  the woman who comes after me will be a bootleg version of who i am. she will try and write poems for you to erase the ones i’ve left memorized on your lips but her lines could never punch you in the stomach the way mine did. she will then try to make love to your body. but she will never lick, caress, or suck like me. she will be a sad replacement of the woman you let slip. nothing she does will excite you and this will break her. when she is tired of falling apart for a man that doesn’t give back what he takes she will recognize me in your eyelids staring at her with pity and it’ll hit her. how can she love a man who is busy loving someone he can never get his hands on again.

  the next time you

  have your coffee black

  you’ll taste the bitter

  state he left you in

  it will make you weep

  but you’ll never

  stop drinking

  you’d rather have the

  darkest parts of him

  than have nothing

  more than anything

  i want to save you

  from myself

  you have spent enough nights

  with his manhood curled inside your legs

  to forget what loneliness feels like

  you whisper

  i love you

  what you mean is

  i don’t want you to leave

  that’s the

  thing about love

  it marinates your lips

  till the only word your

  mouth remembers

  is his name

  it must hurt to know

  i am your most

  beautiful

  regret

  i didn’t leave because

  i stopped loving you

  i left because the longer

  i stayed the less

  i loved myself

  you mustn’t have to

  make them want you

  they must want you themselves

  did you think i was a city

  big enough for a weekend getaway

  i am the town surrounding it

  the one you’ve never heard of

  but always pass through

  there are no neon lights here

  no skyscrapers or statues

  but there is thunder

  for i make bridges tremble

  i am not street meat i am homemade jam

  thick enough to cut the sweetest

  thing your lips will touch

  i am not police sirens

  i am the crackle of a fireplace

  i’d burn you and you still

  couldn’t take your eyes off me

  cause i’d look so beautiful doing it

  you’d blush

  i am not a hotel room i am home

  i am not the whiskey you want

  i am the water you need

  don’t come here with expectations

  and try to make a vacation out of me

  the one who arrives after you

  will remind me love is

  supposed to be soft

  he will taste

  like the poetry

  i wish i could write

  if

  he can’t help but

  degrade other women

  when they’re not looking

  if toxicity is central

  to his language

  he could hold you

  in his lap and be soft

  honey

  that man could feed you sugar and

  douse you in rose water

  but that still could not

  make him sweet

  - if you want to know the type of man he is

  i am a museum full of art

  but you had your eyes shut

  you must have known

  you were wrong

  when your fingers

  were dipped inside me

  searching for honey that

  would not come for you

  the thing

  worth holding on to

  would not have let go

  when you are broken

  and he has left you

  do not question

  whether you were

  enough

>   the problem was

  you were so enough

  he was not able to carry it

  love made the danger

  in you look like safety

  even when you undress her

  you are searching for me

  i am sorry i

  taste so good

  when the two of you

  make love it is

  still my name

  that rolls off your

  tongue accidently

  you treat them like they

  have a heart like yours

  but not everyone can be as

  soft and as tender

  you don’t see the

  person they are

  you see the person

  they have the potential to be

  you give and give till

  they pull everything out of you

  and leave you empty

  i had to leave

  i was tired of

  allowing you to

  make me feel

  anything less

  than whole

  you were the most beautiful thing i’d ever felt till now. and i was convinced you’d remain the most beautiful thing i’d ever feel. do you know how limiting that is. to think at such a ripe young age i’d experienced the most exhilarating person i’d ever meet. how i’d spend the rest of my life just settling. to think i’d tasted the rawest form of honey and everything else would be refined and synthetic. that nothing beyond this point would add up. that all the years beyond me could not combine themselves to be sweeter than you.

  - falsehood

  i don’t know what living a balanced life feels like

  when i am sad

  i don’t cry i pour

  when i am happy

  i don’t smile i glow

  when i am angry

  i don’t yell i burn

  the good thing about feeling in extremes is

  when i love i give them wings

  but perhaps that isn’t

  such a good thing cause

  they always tend to leave

  and you should see me

  when my heart is broken

  i don’t grieve

  i shatter

  i came all this way

  to give you all these things

  but you aren’t even looking

  the abused

  and the

  abuser

  - i have been both

  i am undoing you

  from my skin

  it wasn’t you i was kissing

  — don’t be mistaken

  it was him on my mind

  your lips were just convenient

  it always comes back to you

  boils

  circles

  itches

  its way back to you

  i was music

  but you had your ears cut off

  my tongue is sour

  from the hunger of

  missing you

  i will not have you

  build me into your life

  when

  what i want is to

  build a life with you

  - the difference

  rivers fall from my mouth

  tears my eyes can’t carry

  you are snakeskin

  and i keep shedding you somehow

  my mind is forgetting

  every exquisite detail

  of your face

  the letting go has

  become the forgetting

  which is the most

  pleasant and saddest thing

  to have happened

  you were not wrong for leaving

  you were wrong for coming back

  and thinking

  you could have me

  when it was convenient

  and leave when it was not

  how can i write

  if he took my hands

  with him

  neither of us is happy

  but neither of us wants to leave

  so we keep breaking one another

  and calling it love

  we began

  with honesty

  let us end

  in it too

  - us

  your voice

  alone

  drives me

  to tears

  i don’t know why

  i split myself open

  for others knowing

  sewing myself up

  hurts this much

  afterward

  people go

  but how

  they left

  always stays

  love is not cruel

  we are cruel

  love is not a game

  we have made a game

  out of love

  how can our love die

  if it’s written

  in these pages

  even after the hurt

  the loss

  the pain

  the breaking

  your body is still

  the only one

  i want to be

  undressed under

  the night after you left

  i woke up so broken

  the only place to put the pieces

  were the bags under my eyes

  stay

  i whispered

  as you

  shut the door behind you

  i am confident i am over you. so much that some mornings i wake up with a smile on my face and my hands pressed together thanking the universe for pulling you out of me. thank god i cry. thank god you left. i would not be the empire i am today if you had stayed.

  but then.

  there are some nights i imagine what i might do if you showed up. how if you walked into the room this very second every awful thing you’ve ever done would be tossed out the closest window and all the love would rise up again. it would pour through my eyes as if it never really left in the first place. as if it’s been practicing how to stay silent so long only so it could be this loud on your arrival. can someone explain that. how even when the love leaves. it doesn’t leave. how even when i am so past you. i am so helplessly brought back to you.

  he isn’t coming back

  whispered my head

  he has to

  sobbed my heart

  - wilting

  i don’t want to be friends

  i want all of you

  - more

  i am losing parts of you like i lose eyelashes

  unknowingly and everywhere

  you cannot leave

  and have me too

  i cannot exist in

  two places at once

  - when you ask if we can still be friends

  i am water

  soft enough

  to offer life

  tough enough

  to drown it away

  what i miss most is how you loved me. but what i didn’t know was how you loved me had so much to do with the person i was. it was a reflection of everything i gave to you. coming back to me. how did i not see that. how. did i sit here soaking in the idea that no one else would love me that way. when it was i that taught you. when it was i that showed you how to fill. the way i needed to be filled. how cruel i was to myself. giving you credit for my warmth simply because you had felt it. thinking it was you who gave me strength. wit. beauty. simply because you recognized it. as if i was already not these things before i met you. as if i did not remain all these once you left.

  you leave

  but you don’t stay gone

  why do you do that

  why do you

  abandon the thing you want to keep

  why do you linger

  in a place you do not want to stay

  why do you think it’s okay to do both

  go and return all at once

  i will tell you about selfish people. even when they know they will hurt you they walk into your life to taste you because you are the type of being they don’t want to miss out on. you are too
much shine to not be felt. so when they have gotten a good look at everything you have to offer. when they have taken your skin your hair your secrets with them. when they realize how real this is. how much of a storm you are and it hits them.

  that is when the cowardice sets in. that is when the person you thought they were is replaced by the sad reality of what they are. that is when they lose every fighting bone in their body and leave after saying you will find better than me.

  you will stand there naked with half of them still hidden somewhere inside you and sob. asking them why they did it. why they forced you to love them when they had no intention of loving you back and they’ll say something along the lines of i just had to try. i had to give it a chance. it was you after all.

  but that isn’t romantic. it isn’t sweet. the idea that they were so engulfed by your existence they had to risk breaking it for the sake of knowing they weren’t the one missing out. your existence meant that little next to their curiosity of you.