A ship in a broken bottle,

Run my fingers along the jagged edge and try to decide how hard to push down;

A blade along the curve of a thigh,

Puckered pink scars shining to remind you that they are there,

A slash through an inked flower,

A reminder that I ruin everything that touches me.

And it is always others touching me,

Realizing that I myself do not know how to touch,

Not with these hands.

Tainted, stained; how can they be broken with each bone intact?

I am fingers resting in my throat because they cannot find anywhere else that they belong;

Champagne and orange juice and Chinese take-out.

It tastes like everything else,

Concrete and sandpaper and firewater.

I am forgetting how to swallow,

Though it is the only thing that I have ever known how to do just right.