"Scarlett Gray is a freelance writer living in Dallas, Texas. Her work focuses on the personal and the provocative, detailing pieces of her life with realism and raw honesty."
Until the Sun Rises
You meet me at midnight when the earth wears her veil so that we don’t have to. Time remains still, suspended in a dimension that cannot reach us.
We wear one another’s names and histories like untarnished jewelry on our hands
and tight around our necks, old relics
made up of diamonds and leather.
We’re well on our way
to something greater than another sleepless night.
You expose uninhibited words from lips that taste like rosewater toner.
I’m baring my bare skin as
an offering upon
the bright, geometric-patterned bedspread.
Celestial interludes serenade us
through computer speakers
on a loop.
I’m breathing out reverberated romance— getting you hooked--
and breathing in dispassion laced in enough perfume to taste like red roses and jasmine
and insinuated love.
Touch my skin;
can you feel that I’m electric? I’m making the most
of this artificial feeling,
and making amends
with the things I hallucinate, both behind you
and in you.
Am I in the room with you?
I can’t remember; bring me back.
Your fervent lies
on my mouth taste like sanctuary.
Is my paradise hiding in the unknown?
The moonlight sets us free,
but we both know we’re only in love until the sun comes up
and melts the morning’s afterglow away.
Do You Feel it in Your Spine?
Do you feel it in your spine
when I say your name at three a.m. where no one can hear my
weary, weed-driven whispers?
Do your ears burn a scorching red
when I remember the taste of
your fingertips, traveling,
dressed in a hint of my lavender perfume?
You said you wanted to know what my words would taste like, and you loved the way that
I only ever praised God
when you went down on me.
Does my memory of you exist only in a vacuum? Are my tired thoughts living a life
parallel to yours?
What would I have to do for you to call me perfect
one more time?
You asked me once where I kept my darkness
after I no longer
existed inside out.
I told you
nervousness stems in the bottom of my throat, anxiety at the start of my spine,
and cruel memories swim strong
in the pit of my stomach.
My bones are calcified with stress and worry and a room with too many people
induces in me a dizziness
I can rarely steady.
I am a body made up of bad feelings
encased in soft stretched skin that
I still don’t know how to love every day.
So what is the secret
to a life not plagued by
relentless unease?
To a love without fear?
To “new days” when the sun rises? And opportunity within reach?
How am I to learn the art
of letting go of the people who once led me into a comfortable hell— beautiful, indulgent,
and toxic?
Where do I unlearn
the need to love
only that which will unquestionably destroy me?
People become doors— locked and unyielding--
but what compels new doors to open when existing ones slam shut?