precious precarious

One day
I will not be transformed by a kiss
Or a gentle word
Or gesture
Or caress

Into this
Simpering, needy thing

Who dances so hard
To make sure I make the right foot
Prints to spell out love in your language

Who reels and twirls
But summons the wind to hold me
Just so I can look steady in your gaze

Who knows I am not steady so
Who gushes waterfalls of words
Hoping that somewhere in them
You will hear what you need to

One day I will be fierce
Drinking black label in my blue leopard print jeans

Red lips for the fire in my skin
Converse so I am always run-ready

in this fierceness I will be calm
Collected in myself

Allow you to want me or not
Not hang my whole precarious
Precious
Existence round your neck

I will have grown my spine up
tall, spiky, like tree in my garden

Strong enough to hold me on my limp days
Spiky enough to warn people
Before they try to envelop me

Then you can love me like sunshine
you can leave me like mist
I will not crumble, feel I cannot breathe without you

I will smile, star teeth
stick my tongue out- mine
Into the night