on fear

Your eyes taunt me in the halls.
That gaze is almost a brand,
burnt on the inside of my ankles,
my stark ribs, the ridge
of my collarbone. Your fingers
trace the pattern of your gaze
at night; where I am delicate
or vulnerable, you leave your mark.
Your touch burns me. I admit,
I turn from you in the day,
eyelids at half mast so as not to see.
The blame is mine; it is my weakness
to give you my branded skin,
easily broken, to be marked
with your shadowed fingerprints.