you & me

I Am Sweat And Stardust, And I Am Too Much For You.

I don’t really know if it’s okay to love you like this, but I don’t know any other way.

I have lodged myself at full force, into your chest. Into the dark and deep confines of your gaping torso as it twists to align itself with my soft limbs.

The string of curls on my head trickle diligently down my spine and you cup it in your hands, making a fist of knotted tendrils, as if this alone could ever be enough to keep me from leaving, from ever moving even an inch away from you. We are so close, I can’t even blink without ruining the sheer force of our tangled, twisted fantasy.

The one we keep in crumpled sheets and mismatched socks and bare, blinking flesh particles looming in the air. But we’ve extricated our limbs, we’ve rinsed off the residual lust. And I still don’t know how to look at you without love.

Even the way I trace the peachy texture of your face feels too earnest, as if my fingertips are persuading you to love me back. The seemingly soft kisses I plant across your lips seem to stain your whole face crimson, when I was only going for a subtle blush. My colors are too bright for you, even when I mute them.

We are an infinitely speckled mess of limbs chasing each other in the dark. In the daylight, we glimmer incessantly. You can’t stand the sight of such ripened love. So you close your eyes to drown me out. I sneak in under your eyelids, and you squint them shut, trying to keep me out.

Then the salty rims of your lashes form a pool shallow enough for me to dive into, and I refuse to ever come up for air.

I loved you through patches of tortured night sky.

I loved you through pages of dog-eared books as I search for the perfect metaphor for your eyes.

They were blue birds drowning in the green sea.

I used to swim in them constantly, but the tide proved to be too strong. It washed me away, and I am now sentenced to the shore.

I am forever sentenced to the shore, because…

I scare the shit out of you. My insides are basically on the outside. I think I’m just being honest, but I’m saying things, and they are making you feel naked and you don’t like it. I, mistakenly assume that everyone wants to be as transparent as me. Me, with my heart dripping down my sleeves. I wear it proudly and then cry when someone breaks it.

What did I expect? They don’t know what to do with my pulsing flesh. Bleeding, spouting and pouring red truths everywhere. So, they run. They run into the arms of the pretty girl with the coy smile. The one who never shares too much.

She won’t love like I do, but at least she lets you roll over and sleep afterwards without searing her dark eyes into your soul. She will let you hide. I don’t let anyone hide. I reek of stardust and oceans. I breathe the candle wax, and light up my own insides. And then I stand here and blink at you. I just fucking blink and you topple over.

Because you will never be this bare. You will never pour yourself into me as fully as I pour myself into you. You will never be as hungry for me as I am for you.

And you wish you were, because you would give anything to feel this much. To see the ocean and be colored blue on contact. To see the stars and inherit the glow of comet dust.

I am too whole for you, all on my own. But you will never tell me this, because you’d rather make me small. Tiny and fragile and capable of breaking into something irreparable.

But you’ve seen me break before. You’ve seen my broken parts, shattered on the floor in sharp shards of glass, and you have watched me build myself back up with nothing but my two tiny fists.

I am splayed out in front of you. I am all bare, blinking flesh and beat red limbs and matching moles on my inner thighs and you cant help but already hate the next man who gets to fall asleep here, with me. You can’t help but want to see the insides of his skull.

To see how much space he has reserved for me, the house-sized bullet that is going to tear him down and ruin him. You want to see how he repairs. You want to know how many women he will have to fuck until I am only a distant bomb going off in the horizon. Until he feels the rumble but no longer shakes.

So now, my lips are stained, honey-colored and sweet as can be. I let them marinate in beehives until the sting has numbed them and they’ve swollen to the perfect plumpness. I do this so that when you kiss me, you won’t really feel my lips. Because my lips would bruise your soul on contact and you would not survive.

So I plump them, ready for you to pounce.

And this way, our hearts are shielded, my lips are shiny, and you don’t know a thing. Safe oblivion for two people who only want the watered down version of each other — some lifeless fuck to get them through the night.

I am sweat and stardust, but I won’t combine the two for you.

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Julie Faulkner

Julie Faulkner

Julie Faulkner is raw, unfiltered kindness. She is a soft culmination of mermaid hair, dark eyes, floral dresses, and a lack of hand-eye coordination. She prefers hugs to handshakes, and she makes the best sad song playlists. She loves breakfast food all day, and will always prefer pancakes at dingy diners to five-star fanciness. She believes that there is nothing more attractive than good conversation, vulnerability, and bright-eyed wonder (and boys with really good teeth, don’t judge). She also probably loves you already. Connect with her via Facebook or purchase her book via Amazon.
Julie Faulkner

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