Tobacco Paper Doll.

I don’t call you.

I want to call you and tell you that I love you. I want to touch you and hold you and spend forever with you.

But not really.

When it’s late and I’m vulnerable from reading her words I want to call you. With every page she slits me open as my insides spill onto the bedroom floor. She points and says, “Look! That’s you! That’s inside you and I made it come out of you!”

I don’t like it. I want to scoop it up and put it back where no one can see it.

I want to call you but I don’t.

I want to be wanted when I want to be wanted. Then I want to run away when I need to be alone. I want to pack my bags and run for the hills. But I want the door to be open for me and the light to be lit when I return months later, ragged and worn.

I want consistency for my inconsistency. I want patience for my impatience. I want open arms for my stiff, crossed ones.

But it isn’t fair. 

I want to call you and tell you I love you while my guts are smeared on the carpet. But then I’ll regret it and sew myself up and toss you aside.

And I’ll keep coming back for more. I’ll keep spilling and loving and leaving and hating until I’ve broken your heart so many times you stop coming back.

Then after every page of her words I read I’ll need a cigarette because it’ll be too much to swallow. And she’ll keep acting like she knows me and she’ll keep telling me to go back before you’re gone but I’ll keep sitting here paralyzed with fear because I’m hopelessly masochistic and I want someone to chase after me for once.

My self-hatred is being interrupted by a tobacco paper doll.

January, 2015