What are we to do with this sour milk, beloved?

I think of my mother when I’m in your arms. I can’t help it.

These, my daisy chains, feel like home. This cage of expectations is the only safety I’ve ever known.

I’m not so sure I can give it up. I know you feel the hesitation in my touch. The guilt pooling at the ends of my fingertips as they drag, electric, down your summer stained skin.

You asked if I believed in hell. I believe in a God. I believe in springtime, which I think is the same as a resurrection. I believe that I have a choice. And I know that that terrifies me.

Hell is the thing under my bed. Hell is the thing hanging over my head. Hell is what I think is burning me up when I see the curve of your back and want to follow it with my lips.

When I throw my comforter aside in the sticky pit of summer’s night, a limp pink thing suffused in sweat and tears, is that heaven or is that hell?

Perhaps I call it purgatory, this in-between. From this murky cloud, I glimpse a heaven and a hell. Only, I can’t tell which one holds you.