Knees Words and Lips

--Corinna Storch

I want to dance for you

I want to be in a large room with a big black stage

That echoes when my feet land from flying

I want you there, the only face in a hundred seats,

Watching me

I want to dance for you,

To show you how beautiful my body is,

How beautiful the world is,

How beautiful it can be when I’m dancing in it

When I dance, it’ll be quiet

But I’ll be dancing to whatever song is stuck in my head

And to your favorite song

At the same time

And if you listen really carefully, you can hear them both

Dancing together

And if you listen with more than your ears,

You can see them

Waltzing across the stage together,

The different notes making love to each other in a way more primal and natural

Than we could ever dream of

I want, so badly, to dance for you

But a gym teacher destroyed my knee a long time ago

So if I dance, it’ll only be to one song, my song, and maybe that won’t be enough

Because your song would have made it magical

So maybe, I’ll read to you instead, and my words will pour into your ears like a

Waterfall

Flooding you with sounds so

Beautiful that they fill you up

Until you’re so full it comes

Pouring out your

Eyes

And cleans them

Erases

All the dust and pollution that’s been blinding you and your

Tears will clean them, until you can see again

See like you did when you were five

And the world was wonderful

And you can see for yourself how

Beautiful

The world is

How magical

Because maybe, you forgot.

But maybe my brain is just as damaged

As my knee

So all I can give you

Is this list I wrote of sparkly things,

Because really, what can be better, than that.

• Freezer frost
• Glitter
• Frozen pavement
• My suitemate’s makeup
• The pencil I’m writing this with

And my eyes

Right after I cry

But maybe that’s not your style

Maybe you don’t like sparkly things

Or maybe your ears are just as destroyed as

My knee

And my head

So instead, let me kiss you

And maybe, when our lips touch, you can

Feel the poetry burned on them like

Tattoos and scars

And you can read me like Braille

And feel the poetry

On my lips

My tongue

Down my throat

All the way down to my belly

Printed across my organs

Like the tribal tattoos you get some places

When you become a man

And find meaning in that

When we kiss, maybe you’ll finally see all the

Beautiful things I see

All the time

And we can sit on the rooftop of the chem building or the library

I’ve been on them both,

So I’ll let you pick this time

We’ll sit

And we’ll breath, calm, as the sun falls asleep

And you can tell me everything I showed

You,

So I can see it

Again.