1. you touch me with hands that tremble like autumn leaves in the wind, as though you are afraid that one great gust will grab me from your grasp, –– or that worse… that I will fall all on my own. That I will leave you barren and empty. That you will be alone.
2. I promise you will never be alone. 3. When we fuck, you leave bruises and bites on the skin of my neck. Your teeth tear paths down the length of my throat; when we fuck, you call me beautiful. Angel. Baby. Princess. When we fuck, I can feel your heart like a hummingbird in your chest. When we fuck, you keep your eyes on mine. When we fuck, the lights are on. When we fuck, you kiss me on the mouth.
You call me beautiful even when we don’t fuck. 4. Your keep your bedroom door closed as you fall asleep. But as you sleep, it is your mother with her paper thin fingers up against the wood it is her ears to the wall, it is her lips on your cheek, it is the whispered goodnights that echo in this fractured frame of a family. In the morning the door is open. 5. Your family is not your family. 6. I am your family. 7. We are your family and you are so loved. 8. You are loved. 9. You are loved. 10. You are not your father. You never have been. You never will be.
–– all the ways you are not him (w.w.)