[echo]

[echo]

I.
knowing you're not a mind reader
i still believed
you would taste the words
i couldnot say
when you kissed me.

II.
i wonder how she's made it through
life without
being bruised. without
needing bandages around her
wrists or her heart.

when it's all i can do to
ricochet
[echo]
off every hard person
i encounter.

III.
i tried to tell you
how i pushed myself
into little
sbqouxaerse
for you.

and how i learned to hide
between teeth and tongue and cheek,
how
i learned to hide
stories in my skin.

but
you kept rewriting them
with phrases like
i love you and
silence.