What I wish I knew

I wish I knew how to knit. Friendship bracelets and snow hats and maybe even baby blankets for those friends of mine renting apartments with an extra bedroom “just in case”. I wish I knew how to say goodbye without saying sorry. How to look into your eyes and be truthful without hurting you. I wish I knew how to hold you so you would heal. Maybe I wish I knew how to knit so I could close up your wounds using colored threads, creating sunflowers to cover the cuts I left on your peachy skin. I wish the fingers tracing my body now knew how to make me come the way yours did. But we grew our fingernails too long and tenderness is impossible to wield with claws on.

I keep mine short these days. I thought I started because it’s gayer, then I said it was to play guitar. Neither are fully true. I keep them short so next time I run into you, I can hug you without stabbing you.

God, I wish I knew how to find you again.

The love for my own limbs doesn’t feel quite the same in someone else’s sheets.