she will cradle her head
in patchwork hands
and her
lips crack and out
spills words
explosively.

tears trace peculiar
tracks down
porcelain cheekbones
that jut out
much too harshly
under the dying stars.

cold moonbeams
dance over her hips
and
light upon
the desperation
in her eyes.

invisible bruises are painted
onto her
soul
and when she
smiles
you can almost see them.

a cigarette pressed to
dry cracking lips
will be all she wants
when she
is slowly
slipping.

she will never
breathe a word of
the betrayal
she felt
when her own body
failed.

and when her skin is
paper-white
you will press
trembling kisses to the
backs of her hands
and cry.

at 2 am,
i feel tired and self-aware
i lie on my bed and i stare at my ceiling
i am thinking about you and me and
how much i love myself

i like that i can hold my arms out and have the gap between my hands not be large enough to answer the question, "how much do you love me"

so i get this idea sometimes
that you enjoy being coy
when it comes to me
to conjure momentary spectacle
& make me wonder
if you paint catharsis
on the doors of a home
you've never lived in
as a memory of our first night together
because i do, i remember you
beaming white on blue
speaking softer than any storm
i ever knew, i often think that maybe
you live that night in your mind
when your pillow is cold
& you can't sleep, it makes me wonder
if you do as i do, and rewrite three years fictionally beginning with a kiss somewhere
maybe a balcony or a quiet car
on the sand or in a sunlit grove close to your home but always a familiar scar on the maps we know we know by heart
i wonder if sometimes
the idea of me loving you is too real
and if it teems under your tongue
to stay observant but distantly intrigued
if by this distance you think it safe
to get a dog and pass time
on the couch with a journal & some wine
what i really wanna know is if your fingernails ever wish to have my skin under them
or if they would boast
about winning a war with my headboard
i wonder if you can imagine me
meeting your parents in your apartment & shaking your fathers hand
as a first of many calloused palm readings
and if you know that i trembled before them
how insignificant i had felt
to not know their daughter
in the way i had envisioned
how i picture such poignant moments
so tangibly sharp that sometimes
i replace  my memories with little stories
i tell myself that i can't count on two hands
the number of times i've seen you
& that i don't feel like a crater
when i recollect our collisions
i want to know if you still find madness
in the words that have always been about you
i wanna know if your imagination of me
looks more like an anniversary or an obituary