you once explained to me
how
you had carved
an old boyfriend's name
into the top layer of your skin

i have not asked about it since

because it would be rude of me
to admit that i had imagined the way
your blood might have bubbled up and
i have imagined the look on your face--
i cannot decide if you are grinning
or red and streaked with tears

i want to ask you where the scar is fading--
where the skin may be only
barely lighter than all the rest--
where the memory is clogging your pores

juxtapose

i often imagine
your body beneath my own
not in submission but--
let me worship you

i often imagine
open-mouthed kisses
my lips (the ones you say are so -

pink)
against your skin and your back arching
pushing the soft flesh of your stomach
tighter against my mouth

my lips trailing down your thighs--
your forearms, shins,
knee caps,
belly button, the juncture between your
wrist and thumb--
i want to feel you everywhere

i have not asked you where the scar resides
because it would be
so selfish of me to ask  
just so my lips may find that one spot
on your body
that in another life
you had decided was his
just so i--
just so i could kiss it until it disappeared
suck marks onto it--
deep red and purple love-bites
as if i could chew him up
and spit him back out
as though when i leave a scar of my own--
it will make him go away,

as though if i just kissed you
in the right spot
your body could be mine

but the knowing isn't about me
(i don't think i want to know-
need to know)
who am i to ask you
any such thing

but the kissing isn't about me

i will not ask
but will hope- silently
(i would never admit this sort of thing to you

aloud)

that my lips might accidentally find that spot
and linger there for just
a few moments longer -
pink will brush against the tan--
and
the raised halo of letters--

intimacy

i will not hope that by kissing you
where he had once
staked claim like
you were ever something to be claimed
that i could make you feel
to be mine

you do not need to belong to anyone

i will instead
hope that by kissing you there
(if i am ever by miracle
worthy of finding there)

i may help you feel
as though your body
has always belonged to you