When I met you, I stopped smoking
and began to paint my nails every weekend evening. I thought
you could taste my sadness as if it were your own
because I did not drink alcohol,
nothing could dilute it. It was always there on my tongue.
You had never smoked or drank or tried
to kill yourself, though, so you did not recognize
the acid and that hurt my feelings more than razors or erasers.
I was the first girl you slept beside,
you the first to kiss my eyelashes like smelling daisy stems
before I became conscious in morning sunglow.
Even December air had the inside of a lemon’s color.
And that was better than smoking or drinking or killing myself
or painting my nails mint green,
picking off the excess from my cuticles, without you.
