I want to lick your wounds,
the ones you hide with shame and soft bandages
under cotton shirts and cologne
I know you have a tendency
to pick at the scabs until they bleed

I will let you

I will let you
peel off layers of yourself,
the bruised skin plummeting to the ground
like the falling man
12 years later and he still remains
an undocumented suicide,
his body lost among the rubble

but your pains will not go unnoticed
I will collect them in a treasure jar
when you come to me crying and hesitant of your beauty
I will drag the jar from the living room
despite my own chapped lips
I will kiss the parched skins repeatedly
we will spend hours sewing them back into you

your skin will be patterned into a lighting tree
I will press my ear up against your seamed casing to hear
you oscillate beautiful

you are beautiful
you are beautiful