Maybe I do this
To escape.

I’m the one I think you’re supposed to hate
Because I’m the she when you find a spot to lay all your jealousy
I’m the his of the past,  that’s poisoning your beginning, and,
I guess you don’t know this, but I’m your best friend.
I’m the whirlwind that picked him up, turned him on his head,
The ******* that soaked your hopes in an acrid frailty.
I am the first red-lipped ice queen to bite at his neck
I am the first to coax “I love you” out from the pit in his chest
And he won’t fall for you as easy
No he won’t ever look at you the same
Because his boyish fantasy was a slender girl with a lopsided grin,
Who started games with his mind, that he never did win.
And you might dust off the memories, try to enroot more for yourself
But picking off the scab of me will only make him sore
I’m so sorry that I hurt the one you love, that I stuck around
I’m deemed unworthy of redemption,
I will still, always, and forever, love him more
You can't take me down.

Here, take the messages
from the air waves. Pin down the wind. He was
full of hot air. They’re all full of it. I need cold.
Their heated arguments made me nauseous.
Northern ice storms, bury me in one. I can weather
it. I can weather anything without a traitorous
stay from the cold… body heat…. None of them
were built to last the winter with me.

                 And look, it’s begun to snow.

Resting is never easy, with the stirring of empty thoughts, like clanging little bells and spilling mold from teapots. I sit and drink of folly and greet my guests there, for I’ll never get to resting if I don’t have my fair share. Though the poison may eat me up, I tie wonderland’s ribbon round my neck, and jump the spout into the drink to take my given due. Again I kiss the teacup’s lip and mumble “I love you."

Cottony smoke curled under my nails, on hands too clean, clearly, for the task that would send them one day to bones. Perhaps without the cinders and ash burning peacefully away at the underside of my tongue, I’d find the strength to understand. Though in the darkness, one little gnat of color was a world of fascination. My mind withered in the fire and ignited in that small, red-black glow, wrapping into its strings. Wishing I could burn away too, and burn away everything.
It is no wonder, that….
Being toasty in frosty air, unable to feel my toes, and quite unable to care.

They say I can't chase you next
Can't seek out the moon over Mexico
or relive the tears I shed on the plane
home,
I can't feel the tirelessness of our forever
like the hope that dawned and set inside your eyes
I memorized every stitch in the broken couch
and I can still see us there
You're studying, I'm sleeping,
Planting rhubarb and watching our trees grow
Lightning shorted out the reception tower out back
As I sat on the end of our bed, mind blank, and laughed
All the glitter on the stone patio and the shirt left in the rain and the socks hung to dry on a hook you
Forgot
We kneaded pizza dough and watched Roseanne
That I jumped on you in the middle of the storm as you held me,
Kissing while UMF raged
In one loud, still moment
You are stopping me at the towel shack
Finding my legs under the restaurant table
Shoving my mittened hand in your pocket
Asking me to stay
Messaging me
and I know I'll chase you again
I just can't be with you now.