Peaches, Honey, and Other Sweet Things

I layer my lips with peach chapstick

scrubbing my skin soft

sugar and honey in the shower

artificial softness

until my natural glow grows in, just like my momma said it would

i want to be smooth. soft. glowing.

quick wits with a sharp tongue that melts in your mouth

soft kisses on thin skinned necks

pale veins branching like trees to your brain

i want to fill your mind with music

sweet sounds that drip through the air like thick raw honey

you’re like a honeybee

soft and bumbly

mid-afternoon naps in a thin petaled flower

floating about in the air

making the world sweeter wherever you go.

you were born with your glow

your momma never had to tell you to wait

you’ll grow into it later

soft skin has always graced your figure

a smile like a sunbeam

a laugh like birdsong

you don’t have to scrub yourself soft from the outside in

you’re soft from the inside out

a sharp tongue that melts in your mouth

it all comes naturally

if it were anyone else

graced with grace such as you are

my pale skin would tint green with envy

artificial sweetener turned bitter,

sugar and honey down the shower drain with no effect

but you aren’t anyone else

you are you

and in this moment you have turned your sunbeam smile to me

in this moment it’s me who can feel your softness with my own two hands

in this moment you’ve let your sharp tongue melt in my mouth

my peach balmed lips feather kisses up your tree branch veins

to the brain i filled with my own honey sweet music

and you slack your jaw

to show me your birdsong laugh

before turning your head and showing me

that i do have a sharp tongue that melts in your mouth

you run your fingers across my skin to show me

that my artificial softness is not artificial

that I will never grow into my glow

because it was always there. if only i had looked.

you kiss my cheek to show me

that my sweetness is more than the sugar and honey in my shower

your hand reaches up as you smooth your palm over my sun speckled hair

and you tell me

honey

the glow your mother promised

the smoothness guaranteed on that pop top bottle

the sweetness you showered yourself with for months and years

was a lie

you were born with a glow like the sun

a glow so bright that the world couldn’t bear it

honey

they took your glow

they took your sweetness

they took your softness

and they dulled it down

before you could speak sweet words they filled your mouth with bitterness

before your feet could float across the earth they gave you shoes soled with lead

before you could light up your own life

they told you that such brightness could never come from within

honey

the world convinced you

that you had to find sweet to be sweet

that you had to find another

bumbling honeybee

asleep in a flower

if you ever wanted to fly

the world clouded your sky blue eyes

until you could no longer see the wings resting on your own back

never thank me for seeing what was already there

don’t credit me with admiring beauty that you already had

it has always been there

darling

sometimes it takes two sunbeams

just to see the light

but the light was always there.

your light was always there.