A home for the homeless, by Julia W | poems, essays, and short stories in Poeticous

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Julia W

A home for the homeless

It used to be butterflies, beating their wings against your bones, making a home inside the homeless.
It used to be whiskey, bottles of it swimming through the bloodstreams of girls who were too young to realize, the sound of their fathers voice as he told them to be safe tonight. It used to be promises, words like echoes shattering up and down my spine, sleeping in the crook of my neck, breaking, my bones, like the bottles of whiskey that sit on your breath.
Now it’s just shadows. Shadows of the butterflies that used to beat their wings against our bones, making a home, inside the homeless....
Now it’s just emptiness, no longer filled with whiskey no longer filled with words just, empty.

You open your mouth and constellations come spilling out,
I tried to catch them but they’re burning my hands raw,
I tried to touch you but your skin is fire and I;
am gasoline.

You open your mouth
and I see all the words that left mine filling the air around us, words,
I can’t take back,
words,
that are no longer safe beneath my tongue.
Your body was a lantern
Your hands felt like home

I found you while I was out in the dark
looking for myself.

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