A Family Affair in Braille
It’s cold on the steps and the concrete stings the backs of my thighs.
The street lamps are barely giving me enough light.
But the pressing of tiny pebbles, making indentions into my flesh gives me goose bumps and I run my hand over the pattern.
Wishing it were you.
The cold creeps and stings.
My lips are swollen and sore; they are lacking.
Lips are meant to be pressed and licked, nipped and suckled…
At least mine are.
Mine are.
There’s a crack in the step and a void in the patterns,
I read it like Braille and it whispers words I dare not speak,
Words that ghost over the lace of panty and the hollow of my throat.
When I suck in breath, it feels tight and I wonder if they quiver…
Then I exhale and it just seems to billow out of me like smoke.
But it’s thinner; it does not linger but just dissipates.
I see it and I crave…
Just a clove, just one.
To fill me with sweetness I can not possess.
To numb the center of my tongue and curve down my throat,
Swirl and loom between my teeth until it seeps into the night,
It even looks sweet on the night air…
It would.
Instead I just breathe.
And shiver a bit in silence.
Before the sound of footsteps bring tension and I feel my eyes widen,
Most definitely in fear.
“Do you care for one?”
If it was possible to feel the chill more, I achieve it and his words settle into my bones.
I want to stick a needle in me and suck is all out.
“I didn’t know you smoked cloves.”
I am bitter and desperate and begging for him to leave because I’m not ready yet. I’m not ready to look him in the eye and not see myself staring back at me.
I’m not ready to close my door and it is written all over my chewed lip, plastered all over my chest, and my voice is dripping.
“I missed the way you taste.”
And we tumble back into the heat.
