GLASS CONTEST: WINNER- Melissa Morales

TOUCH

I don’t write about love anymore. The word crumples up in my hand like
a poem’s lines crossed out too many times. The word melts like the wax
burning off a candle wick. The word prickles my skin to bleed like it’s
made of--

September 16.
The first and last day of the world. The day you and I
met. Your laugh reminded me of the harsh cacophony from an alarm
clock; your smile, half-insanity and half-hypnosis. Your eyes, that color
of green which almost made me break like--

October 26.
Do you remember that time I got stuck in storage room?
After I half-consciously remembered where the doorknob was, you came
and went back inside with me. Freezing and trembling, I don’t remember
if it was from the cold or from you me. You guided my hand to the exit
but I was only thinking about your arms around me and gosh, I was
about to crash into a million pieces of--

November-June.
A risqué dance of temptation, frustration, and the color
of your eyes. Always those eyes.

July-August.
Half-hearted soliloquies and Lana Del Rey’s ‘Summertime
Sadness’ on repeat. (A typical teenage melodrama.)

August 29.
I warned him. I told him a billion times. But I didn’t really warn him at all. I wanted this. When he reached out to touch my arm, he fell to the ground and burst into a billion little pieces of glass. I don’t write about love anymore. The word crumples up in my hand like a poem’s lines crossed out too many times. The word melts like the wax burning off a candle wick. The word prickles my skin to bleed like it’s made of glass.
​
“You can touch me,” I told him
“But someone is going to burst into glass
and I really don’t want it to be me.”