I LIKE TO THINK OF YOUR SKIN
lover, here goes. summer turns
to spring turns to
winter and i,
i pluck and pull at my insides, my liver
my intestines, my lungs, and ask them
if they will speak and spill and leak
pour onto this page once more
and could they leave heart-shaped stains
please, i beg for one more declaration of my love
formed in the heat of july three summers ago
my body is tired and you are too far
gone. lover, for you i feel nothing but
love sunk it’s teeth into three years of my life and
i am no good at taking the blame but i learned
that when we swallow our pride it comes back
to bite. i exhausted all the ways i never said
i love you, in poem after poem after poem but
now i have to put it to bed. so here,
i squeeze my organs dry until they burn
one last time, if you ever stumble across
my billet-doux, oh forgive me if i pin my hopes,
consider it your map to the wordless language i dreamed
when your breath warmed my face and you were, blissfully
so, unaware.
lover, here goes. summer turns
to spring turns to
winter and i,
i like to think of your skin
the nape of your neck
the little hollow between two vertebrae
when i rested my lips there
in the morning light i was saying
i loved you i love you i loved you, let me
unscrew my nails from the bone between your breasts
time fades but forgive her, too, if she does
not wipe my divulgence away. xenoglossia, oh forgive me if I believe,
might bend your hand towards your neck and
touch your finger to the imprint my lips left,
private like the indents of your flesh
that decorate my flesh where you touched me last,
and maybe it remembers from that wine flushed drunken night
when you touched your finger to my lips
pretending we wouldn’t, hours / minutes / seconds / later,
kiss.
Alexa Misseyer, 26, Amsterdam - NL ✯ IG: @alexamisseyer
“Alexa Misseyer is a 26 year old author currently residing in Amsterdam. In 2019 she self-published her first poetry collection ‘Allusion’. She is currently working on a novel and another poetry collection alongside it. In her work she likes to explore humanity and all its layers, the intricacies of connection, and the infinite line that links loneliness and love in an eternal dance. Writing is the closest thing to magic she can find and so she writes, and writes and writes.”