you make me melancholy

you are here and you are whole
my initials are printed on your cellophane skin
you paid to have someone else mark you to say
"this is the last time"
"this is my home"

you have made me into a saddened poet
and nearly a mother
our names used to run together justlikethis
now they are separate creatures
ensnared to each other by &
and that is better
we appear at parties, an institution
wedding guests in patchy blazer
and swollen dress
people take photographs of us
i hope someday to see them captioned
by someone who never dwelt in that moment with us

you are thinner this time around
more delicate, i worry someday i will cling so tightly in need of you that you rust beneath my fingers
like i sent you around a carousel and you came back astride a horse and in an ill-fitting suit
longer hair, thinner face, fuller beard
sunken eyes
i made you into a watery corpse
and i'm sorry

i lie on my side and bite sea green glass bottles
think about the child i'll bear you
suffocate and cannot dream
i cry tears of frankincense and battle the dead inside me
calling for me to join them for a day
boy, pray for my life

i can be cold and altruistic
and all i want to do is pen songs
that is fine with you
you have become a mortician now
in dress, in manner, in aspiration

i missed you terribly
i know i am incessant
you stumbled through a curtain and onto my doorstep
i welcomed you with flat palms and clenched teeth
i love you
and i'm sorry i smoked you out the first time around

i told you in a rainy place we've been before
we took it as a sign but i'd already made my mind up
when we lay sunken in my floor, and i breathed with you without hesitation
**** it, why'd i ever let them take you away from me
i'm sorry, friend

we blew kisses to our stars and now i'm making you a father after all your friends
in your veiny hands you'll hold our only child
i'm so sorry for what i did, and what i'm bound to do
you'll be back soon, i miss your sunken cheeks and the way you say goodbye
i need to rest my bones, you make bitterness taste like home