white lines

White lines in my head

lines lines lines like an empty

notebook like a line

on a mirror, cut

so fucking perfect, so neat, I’m not neat

I’m messy — not ruined

just different just unusual

like the taste like the burn at the top of my nose, deviated

postnasal drip down the back of my throat

like a song to a beat my heartbeat is too fast feel my pulse

in my wrist like a bug trying to dig its way out. don’t come out.

I don’t want that anymore.

Only sometimes

like when I smell your cigarettes

on the pages of my journal

and inhale and feel heavy in my gut

thinking how much I would love to grab

you through the shadows the slats make

in the blinds, hold you

see you in your body

and not

just the way you are now — in between –

the pages.

I wish you would linger.

Is this you now? In the lines?

Yes yes yes

I don’t blame you,

you only come to me as you are

liminal and just out of reach

just up and underneath

the white.

© 2023, Georgia-May Stone. All Rights Reserved.