trace the delicate fractures 
of everything I have survived
press your tenderness into the places 
I have spent a lifetime
trying to conceal

let your fingers 
wander through the ruins of me
touch every scar as though 
it were something sacred 
every broken piece as though 
it were still worthy of being held

crawl beneath my ribs 
and rest against my heart 
learn the rhythm 
of everything I cannot say 
until you know me in ways
that words could never make possible

I want you woven 
into the marrow 
of my existence so deeply 
that even my bones begin to ache 
with the beautiful weight 
of belonging to you

and when the years have taken 
everything beautiful
from the surface of me
when my skin has forgotten 
the softness of youth 
and my hands can no longer hold you 
as they once did

stay

stay where the world 
cannot reach you
where the passing of years 
cannot undo us
where even silence 
becomes another way of touching

I want you somewhere 
deeper than love
somewhere beneath the marrow
beyond the reach of memory 
in a place so profoundly mine 
that even death 
would have to tear me apart 
bone by bone to find the part of me 
where you have always lived

and even then 
among whatever remains of me

I hope they find the shape of you 
still written inside my bones