Skin Starved

Do you remember when you were born, your mother and father,

Their faces the first and fullest of loving gazes?

Do you remember what it felt like to call those arms your home?

I could search until shoe soles wear thin down to feet, bloody.

Until I can’t feel my bones, skin shed somewhere lost to me,

and still never find a way to settle such a longing.

When does love stop being enough?

When it can no longer take you by the hand and lead you to its warmth,

when it’s absence reminds you that

Under every sky we are all our bodies rotting.