insecurities justwrite

You look at these words and say they're not radical enough because I think fireflies are beautiful like a cloud with the moon shining through, beautiful in a way you can't touch, like me. My cactus skin waits for water, swells when it rains and smells like the dirt on the bottoms of my feet and petals crushed beneath, the veins of my leaves throbbing in the summer as great shovels dig more veins and more veins out of the Earth. I sit all day because I can't think when my thighs are making so much noise and your whispers are disrupting their rhythm when I walk. I used to dance, you know. I used to dissolve and let the air come in between each part of me, float away on a breeze like pollen in the spring, tickling your nose to finally watch you cry, your eyes watering just before you sneeze and I know your heart stopped for a moment, just long enough to murmur I love you and finally leave, fading to yellow, orange, brown, its shell falling as the children on the ground reach up to catch every wish before it burns out because I've had to many birthday cakes with wax centers. The candles melt to nothing while I try to think of what to say but only remember the wax burns when it is gas, like the kind that lifts hot air balloons but not the kind that makes rainbows on the asphalt when I know I should've wished to be barefoot. Everything you've ever seen reflects off your irises and stains the roses in my cheeks. Everything you've ever seen is so backwards it hits your mind upside down and needs to be flipped over before you understand. I wonder how we can trust gravity when we know this, but I'm too afraid to fly because you keep telling me I'm so heavy, carving numbers into my limbs, my branches, hearts with arrows straight through, and I remember it's been a long time since I knew how to dance. It's been a long time since I've danced with you.