Jacob Jing

how do I explain this without violence. / how do I sterilize this grief in a way / that fits inside of a closed mouth. / I latched my lips around my anguish, but / it corpsed into a goodbye and / shattered against my tongue, / mimicking raindrops, which is to say / solitude is merely a result of our lives / collecting in flight and / plummeting with heat. / but heat is just another way to misconstrue rebirth. / I am forging another skeleton to scar myself into loving. / each one carries its own fatal flaw / and adds another life / to regret, but it is the only way I am able to generate warmth and not / burn. still, / in which iteration do we make it out alive? / in an ideal world, I would not have to survive / in relation to my body. / I would simply hold you, boneless and fire-filled / and lacking silence. / but here, I am only allowed to yearn for the things within my reach. / so come closer. brush your hand through my hair / with fingers that were taught to flinch from warmth. your love is / the gentlest way to violate my body’s plea for invisibility. / tell me that you see me / but you will close your eyes and wait for my flesh / to first metamorphosize into pure light before / you open your mouth / and hold me there. /