invisible

I've never been invisible before. I'm used to the light, bathing in it and banging things around a little louder than normal, telling stories with my hands and winking magic into ordinary situations. Now I'm almost completely transparent, a tissue paper flipping around in the kitchen and burning up when it touches open flames.

When you look at me, I see everything I could be and I know you see me like I want to be seen. I'm illuminated again when I'm around you, you feel like home and you feel like comfort, and  I hang onto the ends of all your sentences.

Then I'm not with you, and I'm back to this empty uncomfortable nothing that forms like a ball in my stomach, ignored and drifting again like some discarded piece of plastic in an ocean filled with identical waste, gasping for air. I'm sick with some kind of loneliness that I've never felt before.

Please, come back.

according to your palette

is it my mind and then words,
words and then my mind,
swirling back and forth like some sort of
soup,
(the kind with letters)

rocking my body
rolling it on the mattress
kneading it like some sort of
bread
(the kind with air pockets)

I’m a little flimsy,
attacking sporadically
without warning like some sort of
curry
(the kind with boiled potatoes)

if you leave me alone for too long
my senses war with themselves
molding and stinking like some sort of
vegetable
(the kind like spinach left in the bottom drawer)

it’s a tough buy for sure,
you could go with a safer option
something predictable like some sort of
granola bar
(the kind with little chocolate chips and dehydrated                         marshmallows)

but when you find me,
you’ll be warm in the most unexpected way
feelings like the kind around
waffles
             (the kind you make on a Sunday morning in the middle of an                   embrace, spilling them all over the counter, filling every                   pocket with something different; kissing sticky fingers and                 untangling ratted hair—the best kind that takes a while to                   eat but fills you right to the top)