Splinter

Splinter written and performed by Ryan J. Tressel
The salt on your skin clung with a fervor that I did not possess. You said you'd grant me any three wishes, if only I could guess the shade of your eyes and the height of your tanline the way that your waves crash and crest against mine. Our kisses like brine. You seemed like the shore, defined by something else. You drew a line in the sand between everything and yourself and you sank like a dream in the flotsam and steam and you said we were one but I could see the seams. A roof without a center beam. Please don't remember me. You thought we would last but then came the winter. The man who loves you rests inside me, nagging like a splinter. It's too deep to handle like the wick of the candle that's buried in the wax. It's impervious to flame and won't respond to its name we're all turning our backs on them but not you but there's nothing to do the way you're both attached. So you can't control me and you can't convince me that I don't deserve less than nothing at all except the rise and the fall of the sun and the shame please don't mention my name, not even silently. Just don't remember me.