Unstitch
I exist only in pages,
as your story, as your words.
I am not yet written.
Will you take this pen
and engrave me?
Let me feel the burn of disdain
Write me like the horizon at the edge of ruin,
Like I breathe it in with veiled smoke.
Write me dead.
Let me belong to you,
Etched with reckless hands,
Write me with crimson.
Write me like you—
But not your vanguard,
Write me like the idealized specter you hold.
Write me like names on a vacant stone,
Write me who I’m not allowed to be,
Denude me of my relentless cynicism,
Carve me with your reckless hands.
Don’t write me vulgar,
don’t write me a fool.
Don’t write me as a boy or man,
as a girl or woman.
Don’t write me as a mirror
of a broken home
or the empty corridors of a school.
Don’t write me drab,
don’t write me adorned,
write me as whispers in the dark,
Like a breath in the wind,
Like a promise suspended midair,
Write me an enigma,
To all but you.
Write me like a phantasm,
write me raw,
write me tormented.
My tongue is a needle,
Sewing each word I say.
Unstitch me.