If I mentioned all my skeletons, would you jump in the seat? That fear of being defined by trauma and shame resonates throughout and my blemishes are so defined that by the time this poem ends, “me” is just as nebulous as the effigy I've spent burning.

I want a grey shirt

to go over my green shirt

and I want to hurt so bad,

because I am addicted

to its relieving end. 

Life is good,

but it is missing something:

lips like yours.

between caustic taunts
and plaintive confessions
that gleam like shards of a mirror,

I don't know what else to do

to get through to you. 

I've changed colors,
I've changed clothes,
writing in quick strokes and sketches
that channel my messy admissions.

I bare my soul,
a tidy conclusion

to an untidy love  
that provokes more questions than it answers
with a mission and a throughline
to probe feelings and hangups,
no effort lacking,
and now we’re free.