I know love, lust,

and lonely well enough

to tell them apart.

I loved you and I knew it

when we lied in the park

beneath the marbled dusk

of a melted midnight.

I didn’t notice the sting of mosquitos

feasting on my ankles;

I was too distracted by the feeling

of your skin. You played me

a song, and I hated it. I listened anyways

again and again.

You taught me to love myself

but I only really learned when you left.

For a time I was awkward and unfamiliar

with the embers nestled in my ribcage.

I was the same with you.

The first time I came over we walked your dog;

I asked about classes and complemented the trees

as if all of them were yours.

When I stopped loving you

I started lusting after him.

Bit lip wide eyed want

pooled inside a dazzling shell.

I was an excitable exoskeleton,

lonely and surrounded by people.

When I started lusting after myself, though,

a love was born that is immortal—

I find that funny.

Love may not be lust, but lust

became a love, of sorts, with my back to the bed.

My hands on my body,

my hands in my body,

reminded me of my realness,

my sturdiness, my vivacity.

It all makes perfect sense

until it doesn't.

I loved you and lusted after you.

I lusted after him and didn’t love him.

I lusted after myself and grew to love myself, too.

I never became a stranger

to the nip of loneliness.