I am the soles of his shoes, I must like the feeling of my cheeks
against the gravel, he presses my jawline in
hard, I keep coming back in an attempt to pluck out
each pin shaped stone. There is not much inside apart from old cogs
and plastic tubes that twist around my spine,  

something burrows into my stomach and sits,
clattering as I breathe and I have to keep on hushing it up
as its fingers start to pull my ribs apart
so the world can eye my heart up, open like empty drawers,
so I can walk around with my pores unfastened
spilling out everywhere.

I did not mean to crawl so far into his jean pockets
because I knew it would be so hard to wash my skin
out of their fabric. He is like a two AM fire alarm, loud
and I must heave my body up and stumble down the stairs,
'it's too cold to stand outside with all these half-asleep students
at this time in a morning, will you let me back in?'
He makes it rain and my eyelashes do not make good window screen wipers
anymore.

There's a book of poetry on the table
and he puts his cup of coffee
on it. I have never thought of my heart
as a book of poetry
until then.