Let’s role play. You be the bullet and I’ll be the man. I’ll be the author and the renegade and the one making the love from now on. I can smell the burnt wood and knives and all the things my brother could build and all the things I wish I was. It’s crisp. It’s a drag. It’s a top hat. 

Too pretty. Too heavy. Too much of everything that doesn’t quite fit into the shape of my body. It’s a love song to my imaginary self. Another empty glass. All body and no bite. Hoping to be something worth spilling. Like caviar or gasoline. 

In my drunken haze, I pray for you to haunt me outside of my mind. I find myself lingering at places you might be. Meet me at this dark bar and let me look into your eyes for a semblance of lie like a cheap flirtation. As I wait for you, my eyes draw circles around other men. I sit here laughing at my own neediness. I’m this thing, moving slowly in a skirt you once liked. I am my own threat. 

Right now I’m half panic attack and half orgasm, stuck somewhere between wanting you to want me and wanting to disappear completely. I could be at the sharp edge of your grin. Breathing in the slow heat between your gaping teeth but I’m out here trying to figure out how to swallow a prayer without choking on it. I fight to force myself to stand alone. I’m not in the moment. I step off the barstool landing two long things onto the ground. There’s nothing left for me here nothing but the sounds of my pockets emptying out. Don’t laugh at how small I feel. Meet me in this fragile place. 

I’m inside myself having a laugh. That’s where I’m at. You don’t know how to hold me. You don’t know the things I’m made of. You don’t care to know. I’m scared that that’s all I want you to know of me. All I do is hold out for you. Hoping one day you figure it out.  

I’m loving you from beyond the bed, babe. I’m gonna make you mad one day.  And one day, when I’m gone, you’ll still remember my soft skin and the obedience in my eyes that you never took the time to love. I’m out here on the edge of something. They broke all the real men in the world, didn’t they? They castrated the love out of this city. 

I’m the gun standing in front of you. Limp in your hand. You want a girl that’ll give you a chance. Baby, I’ll give you the world. You’ll never have what you think you want. Because you don’t even know the half of it. And I don’t think  you ever will. 

I’m the weapon of choice. A gun is more dangerous than a real man. But, nothing’s worse than being the weight of the trigger. I’ve been the gun, cold, hollow, waiting. Real power lies in not firing me off. And here I am still cold, hollow, waiting, knowing that no one will ever hold me the way they think they  should. I guess I’ll be the man opening fire from now on.