for this i would pour my time out from my pencil til i was gone
short of age
to admit to dreaming myself carved deep into the dips where your elbows rest 
to quake to the humanity of the mundane-
not for the time he would quietly ask me what became of my body
and i would spit the answer between his teeth as if trust were something
he couldn't break 
for this, i would wish to become a secret
stolen in forgetting all the ways he could touch
and all the ways i couldn't-
rare was your truth
but you kept it as if it had been torn from his tongue like taste,
fought in the way lips stand against my carving of words;
i had hoped you would hear from me before the beginning. 
i admit i still see him between the splinters in my palm
like a fortune
and yet i see you within the blankets of closed eyelids 
rushing in and out of what could be taken as a likeness-
you aren't hidden in my stories,
they are for your eyes