Lemon-lime soda and scars from jewelry I no longer wear.

The first piece of jewelry he gave me
was a bracelet of mosquito bites--
he wore one identical to match with 
beads in the shape of kidney beans, 
chick peas, and frozen blueberries--
and he told me that we didn't need
aloe-- that the longer we wore the bracelets
the more they would fade if we forgot
to itch them-- awaken each jewel he
had placed under our skin with the 
syringe mouth of the mosquitoes. Those creatures
have always followed me for my sweet blood--
the lemon-lime soda that flows through
the canals of veins I carved out with a bendy straw
from years that I used my blood only
to transport guilt and a creative
number of ways to apologize for existing--
stored red cells with the sum of "I'm sorrys" from
spilling glasses of cola on the porch.
I picked broken out of his heels afterward.
The ants would follow the brown syrup 
to the space beneath the folding chairs
and drink cola and talk about how 
mosquitoes prefer the taste of nectar to
that of cola and that cola was better in winter
served warm.
He gave me a necklace too and this time
it was just for me-- placed it around my neck
like an Olympic medal for outstanding
achievement in the fear of dying alone
crushed between book shelves or
bled dry from mosquitoes who came
to know me as a juice pouch-- punctured me
through my forearms and in rows on my sides
to try to get every drop out of me-- I've
always thought my blood tasted metallic and 
slightly like apple juice. 
I came to know the necklace as a noose
like we all do and the bites formed themselves
into a rough chord that I slung over my shoulder
so that I could walk with it-- and he asked 
me if I liked it and I always said I did
but each time the necklace only got heavier until
I could no longer walk away from mosquitoes 
and my skin became a mine field of buried
blueberries and orphaned kidney beans.
He told me that I walked too slow for him
and I repeated my practiced "I'm sorry"s 
that I had stored so long like hard candies 
in the corridors of my veins. He ate
them and told me they tasted like
root beer barrels and reminded him of summer.
He asked if I wanted rings to match
my bracelets and my necklace and I told
him I was going to fill my veins with
aspartame-- that I wasn't going to keep
counting the wounds from bendy straws 
that I wanted to have skin like a piece
of printer paper again and crush mosquitoes
between my index finger and my thumb--
and I would drink diet soda from 
juice boxes on the porch in bold
bare knees without bracelets or blueberries.