The second time I met someone from a dating app by Rosa Caines

I never thought it would happen to me

In this invited way

A night spreading out like any other

A night with open arms

With awkward conversation and questions and whisky

You asked if you could kiss me

And later you held my hand

I hope you break both your knuckles 

I lit candles and dimmed the lights and put on my favourite Bowie record

Lay down on my pink sheets

Red silk underwear

My body a bouquet

Where was the moon when I needed her?

Why weren’t there foxes screaming bloody murder outside?

Why wasn’t my gut doing anything at all?

I thought I knew all of my feelings by that point 

I thought I had felt it all

The full spectrum from red right through to blue

That it couldn’t happen to me in this way 

Because I would always want it

And I always wanted it

I used to keep a list of all the boys I had slept with 

I don’t think I can add you to it

After you lay there your hands behind your head

Itching for your clothes, for the door 

I felt strange

My hands felt small and alien

I couldn’t tell if I wanted you to stay or to leave immediately 

And which feeling was stronger

The careful careless way you handled me

Hands around my throat like picking up a glass of water

I hope you break both of your knuckles

I hope you burn your tongue on every cigarette

I hope you lose a tooth

Bruises bitemarks starting blue and purple 

The colours of my favourite wildflowers

Bluebells, violets

I wear a polo neck for a week

I didn’t think

You left my bed

That I own

That is mine 

That is only mine

Mumbled excuses and early starts

Dragging your body through the door like an apology

I asked if this is how you always do it

Standing at the doorway wrapped in a silk kimono and a frown

I don’t know why I did it 

But I hugged you goodbye and I didn’t recognise my arms

I have this need to close off situations, to punctuate them, to resolve them, to make them nice

Unable to leave anything on a bad note

I think it is what women are taught to do

After

I sat upright under the covers

And ate an orange

Pulling the vivid flesh apart with my thumbs, juice spilling down my neck

An experience infinitely more intimate and sensual than what had just happened

It was a slow thing that crept up on me sometimes

For the next few months I felt different

I stopped fancying people on the telly

I stopped touching myself at night

I stopped smiling at strangers

I wrote out messages to you and deleted them 

I dreamt of you

I dreamt of you a lot

Alternately hurting you and being hurt by you

You told me you made art in abandoned buildings 

You showed me pictures of huge murals and warped faces

Painted on crumbling walls and corners in Berlin and London

I remember feeling impressed by this

But now these images flash like crime scenes

You said abandoned spaces were your favourite thing

And you would go in uninvited and create art on the walls in dark colours

Maybe that’s why you treated my house like that

Maybe that’s why you treated my bed like that

Maybe that’s why you treated my body like that

And I am learning that it wasn’t my fault

And I am learning to trust the moon again

And I know what you are

And I know I’ll hurt you in a dream tonight

--Rosa Caines