If the Earth was a Woman

I’d rather be avoided like the plague than be plagued with these insecurities. Because I hate the way my lips tilt, heavy with gravity every time I smile. As a kid, I’ve always wanted to be invisible. And I never really smiled that much anyway.

I have a magnet pulsating where my heart should be. That meteors come crashing straight for my ribcage, with the innocent intent of coming across something worth keeping. But darling, I’ve only got bones where your metal detectors tell you there’s gold. I’ve only got empty spaces where you hope to unearth forbidden cities in me.

Remember when I couldn’t sleep and you stayed awake just for me? Remember how fireworks whistled and exploded in another part of town but we watched lightning run across the November nightsky in my backyard instead? I counted nineteen, you counted twenty-six before sleep wrapped us tightly in its cocoon. We believed we’d emerge with wings, but life’s a black widow all along and we’re just mayflies, ensnared in opposite ends of its silk web.

I wish I could personify my scars into the same way lightning intertwine like ribbons falling mid-air, before they hit the ground running. But whenever I accidentally catch a glimpse of them in thrift shop windows or in rain puddles, the only thing I see running is blood. And that’s exactly what I’d like to do.

Because the number of times my shores are vandalized in a year with HELPMEsigns equal to how many suicides weren’t recorded after the Titanic sank.

And tell me, who would want to live in a world that kills itself each day?