She, 

a gentle stranger, 

travels down your curving spine,

gooseflesh following her hungry tongue.

She says

/you taste like smoke/

and you smile softly into 

the pillows.

You used to pluck your eyelashes out like

dying daisy petals,

unaware that they wouldn't ever grow back.

You cried for hours when you first heard, 

into your silken sheets, 

then bought a tube of mascara. It was 

yellow,

like teeth rotten by cigarettes;

you never go anywhere without it.

Her fingers pass through the dip 

of your back, 

where freckles splay out onto 

thick hip bones with fading pink circles.

She says

/these are different/

and waits for a response. 

Your hair is luscious, 

down your back; you don't owe

one stands any explanations, 

not with a mane like yours, 

something that took you years to grow. 

She seems kind, though;

her voice is gentle and prodding,

her fingers lightly caressing the marks.

You rest your chin on your left shoulder,

you say,

/I used to pick at my skin. I

never believed my mother when she warned me

about scars. She's smug now, I'm sure./

She rolls the words over in her mouth,

tasting the easy lie. 

For a moment, she seems doubtful, 

but she says nothing.

Her swallow is palpable in the cold room,

and she kisses both of your hips. 

Maybe she's known what they look like; 

to be a girl with the desire to ravage her own skin,

to take a long drag, poisonous cigarette held 

precariously

in scarred fingertips,

and press.

You stopped caring a long time ago

if the people you held were whole;

maybe she stopped caring, too,

if she would wake up next to a 

dead body.

You try and imagine the 

curve of her mouth, 

waking to blue silence, 

but you know it'll never happen. She'll

wake up to fresh cigarettes in the ashtray,

cherry still smoking,

and mascara stains on her pillows.