if you'd like to take six years off your face and tell me the real parts, the truth, and we don't take pictures anymore
because everything
is too soft to touch,
too sensitive to drill holes in that it becomes
angel-food-cake
and if the alarm wakes you up, smile
if the man holds your door open, whisper thank you and smile demure
and if you get wrapped up in whatever welcomes you in the freezing snow

it's

alr. ---ight.

when you tell the whole honest truth, or something synonymous I wouldn't blame you if it came out like a lie, with your face scrunched up in the market place. I can't ask you to be more than that girl in those clothes and
I can't love you less than if you
were something believable

and the scent comes back as memorabilia. Something you'll pay close to anything for to drown in
slowly
and slowly
but cautious

We would just pull our stockings on and sing a new song that we were making up on the spot - say not only no (but the kind of NO a junkie says to rehab, scraping finger nails on the floor, or the door jamb or the feet of stranger in the lobby) and shake our heads smiling: "No we will not be preoccupied with how the gaping wounds, yep you can stick your hand or your arms through these wounds and out the other side, you could feel my cardigan, no I am not satisfied to live with a hole where my heart will be. Honey, I will not try to fix it, or dwell on it, I am going to walk in high heels, and I'm going to keep washing my hair, and I'm going to smile flirtatiously with the mailman each day until it goes away." We'd say that. And after awhile the burn was more like lightly toasted, and we didn't use band-aids in hopes of cauterization.
And we never ever ever called a doctor about it.