flutters

pop rocks stinging my tongue, I ask you, “have you ever..?” “don’t you think?” “when will you?”

snap, click, zing,

my stomach feels the same,

knotting and bubbling out my mouth,

searching for extra space it doesn’t have,

asking for permission to implode on some elastic whim,

overextending itself in excitement and confusion.

my breath swims in my chest like breezes shooting over ocean waves,

forcing itself out in hefty gusts that sound like laughter.

always laughing, tickled and prodded from the inside out,

something’s pulling me closer to you and it’s bothering me.

I keep asking it to stop, cut it out, knock it off,

but they’ve never been disciplined, my insides,

and my brain watches like a parent whose child has spiraled out of control

after consuming an entire bag of sugary snacks,

sighing because “she should know better,” and “what are we going to do about her.”

it’s not my fault, I tell myself, but the pressure between my eyes is telling me that it is,

and perhaps it’s me that creates this magnetism between souls,

pressing mine against another until he’s stuck like

the velcro bands on my shoe,

ripping off with a loud sound and then pressing back on again.

my fingernails scratch my face in some sort of strange reaction,

it’s itching me whenever I look at my phone,

am I psycho? I wonder

no, not that, but instead controlled by the gentle flapping of

millions of wings living inside me,

lifting me off the ground and begging me to escape,

to let them cover my skin in soft ethereal colors and flashing light,

to set me next to him in a haze of pollen and powder that covers us both,

-------------stop!------------------

I yell, sending them careening back into my diaphragm,

stop,

or else I’ll have to tell them about you.