ugh.

i.
The archepelgo of your freckled face
keeps my fingers entertained
as they skip from land to land.

I know you feel tiny, and cramped
in this life and space. If I could open you up,
give you more land, I would do it.

Like a rock garden, your toes dig into me
when you roll over, grunting in the night.
I think of you, with defined black edges.
In this fear, this chasm inside of you,
I would fill it with soldiers for protection.

I am only one, clay and stationery,
not ever enough.

ii.
Their voices will change, growing deeper
or more lithe. They will pet me, tell me
that my hair is long. And my ankles thin.
They will shudder forward rapidly, shocking me
at how development continues. They notice

when I wear the same scarf, or the same lipstick,
two days simultaneously. But they cannot know
in the harsh mirror morning, the lines I see
forming across my face. I have too many horizons

and they cannot see, because there are still ways
to hide and to fluff. I layer myself and for now
that is all that they need.

iii.
He cannot hear that we all grow. Painfully,
I can hear his bones changing. They grind
like teeth against each other.