something justwrite

You look at me because my bones are antiques you want me to dust off and sell. You look at me because the gold rings in my eyes would fit around your fingers perfectly, if you could only reach them. You go in through my belly button, come out the soles of my feet so I'm knee-deep in your memories, burning off my skin in billows of steam so white the people down the street think they're sails and I'm standing in a crow's nest searching for my new world that is neither new nor mine, and I think maybe I'm just searching for the crow, standing in her house, my big toe smashing her bed. Suddenly, I'm a wax doll in summer sunlight, my limbs losing form and gaining fluidity. You are so close to me your breath leaves ripples on my surface. I try to run but fall instead, land in the ocean choking on salt, a gold ring caught in my throat. I haven't felt air since then. My body is under water, the sunlight bent away from my face, my whole world above me and distorted by the tides so even pictures of myself look like dreams I can't quite describe. I wake up happy and alone but wake up again with no bones and empty eyes. You fingers are fanning out from my belly button like petals on a thistle. There is a gold ring on each one, and for a moment my body is the sun until it's so cold I'm numb. My skin is sprouting a pine needle for each memory and every time you touch me I taste blood, copper pennies, gold rings.