The &
when I peel you from my armour you slip out like the pit of an olive slick with red still warm in the way dead things aren't & if I buried you now would you grow would you reach for me through Trojan earth wet with breaths we should have shared in a scorched tent humid with want seeping from skin from between rug burned thighs from the lucid dip between your shoulder blades where I'd lay my damp palm press you down onto the sheets & after my fingers will meld into that curve as you tell me about the young soldier whose arm hung limp bone gored from flesh torn at the elbow how he fell to the ground the moment his friend's breastplate stopped rising as though they shared one heart & I’d search for words to allay in the coarse hairs on your chest that catch on my lashes with each blink & I'd promise us a future as the camp shudders to still life around the first bare shadows of dawn
five steps through january
i.
a pearl of sweat dips
between shoulder blades
tracing the tight curve of your back
as you hunch over my toes
with Tangerine Tease
your breath sticks to my calves
& in the corner my Gatorade-blue desk fan
holds its breath
ii.
your sun-blushed hand
outstretched around mint choc chip
pastel green drips down your thumb
you say, try some like a dare
so i bend
lick a stripe of heat
on the soft inside of your wrist
iii.
we're bracketed by concrete
steps watching warm rain soak your brown hightops
the right side of my body is static
neon where it brushes your damp arm
when you lean into me the cotton curve
of your chest rises; falls against my side
& i reach out to trace the pink smile
of an old scar nestled in your shin
iv.
you kiss me in my room
right up against the locked door
the brass knob cold against my hip
your hands flutter from my chin
to waist to shoulders
never still
& after you say, sorry i'm sorry
before i've even gotten the chance to secret
the taste of you between my teeth
v.
hey so i've got a boyfriend, you text me
after two days stretched into silence
& i reply, oh cool
because summer has a way
of melting
everything sweet
Naveena is a writer who should really be drinking more water than she currently does. She can usually be found trying to befriend any cat or dog she comes across, or queuing up for boba.