I run my hands from my chest to my waist

and squeeze the nights of sadness that have laid there, waiting.

I want to get rid of you, I say silently

to the sadness, to the curves, to my heart.

What would happen if I stopped?

Stopped whatever it was, whatever it is

that causes this flood of sloshing rainwater

in the holes inside my heart?

I fill time with sugar, pain with starvation

I count calories like the broken bulbs of Christmas lights

and measure tears with the people absent enough to create them.

I do not blame the darkness for my shadows;

I blame the light for giving me the ability to see them

and when I look at the criss-crossed patches on my body

sometimes I feel like love is not an emotion

but the soft touch of five fingertips

etching serenity into scars.