please don't tell me these things
that i do not want to hear
the words that traipse off your
lips slowly
like you savor the red pock marks
they leave on my skin
each consonant
rams its way under my nails
and each vowel raises my pores

i do not want to know
i do not need to know the others
that cut us out of magazines and dutifully
pasted us together with their glue-sticks
i have ripped myself from this scene
i am no longer so
two-dimensional
not so easily shaped by
safety scissors

i have broken out
don't give me words
that lead me back wandering
no crumb trails of pleases and could
have beens and they wanteds

i am done
i am new
and i do not need this
to shackle me

because for once
i am outside of the boundaries

for once
someone whispers in my ears words
i've longed for

and this will not last forever

but you will not break it

and this will not last forever

but you will not break it for me