No One Will Ever Know You Like I Knew You

By

I knew that skin before the ink.
I cupped it with my hands, whispered with my lips.
I know what you looked like before you updated yourself.
I touched that skin.

And anyone else after me
Will never know
How that skin felt

How it will feel differently under their fingertips
Because I’m the one who knew
That pigmentation that added up to
What I thought was divine imperfection that so perfectly fit
Into the hills and crests of my own untouched skin

Where birthmarks and beauty spots marked
our maps with a unique topography that,
If we were not pressed together would not exist
between anyone else that might have the pleasure to see our skin.

I charted maps and raked down lines of red like
freshly mowed land when you dug a groove of yourself into me.
I have seen what is underneath, and they will never know.
My fingerprints will lie on your skin beneath that color
like floaters in your eye.

Entombed in a myriad of resin
But tattoos will never let you forget.

So you raid your memory, racking yourself
and shaking those feelings free
Like water jammed in your ear
Uncomfortable and hard to ignore

And you look like an idiot
When you try
To forget me.