I came in through the front door
You left the rings on the counter
Delicately one on top of the other
The boxes neatly organized,
A note on the chalkboard
“I’m sorry I couldn’t do more”
Your blood still staining the floor

I didn’t breathe for a week
My body did not know how to eat or sleep
Felt you pressed against me
In the muscle memory

Laid in the tub
Wrapped my clothes around me
Try to absorb the warmth in anyway it found me
I put the ring back on
I erased the note
Listened to our song

I unpacked the boxes
Scrubbed the stain from the floor
This place wasn’t home anymore.

Does it haunt you
The way it haunts me
Standing on the shoreline
Two am it’s freezing

Salt in my lungs
You cannot see me
Held on too long
Watched the tide go out
We did it all wrong

I pushed you inside me
I watched the fire spark
At the hint of lightning
Brushed the hair from your eyes
In a mania that was almost frightening

I didn’t know how to trick my pulse
Slow it down or look away

All I really knew was I wanted you to stay.

Do you remember that day?
We laughed at mortality
Danced wine hungry
Eager for another story.

You said I was not old enough to feel the weight I did, as I circled loops around you. How could I know the ache?
You asked over and over again.

As if the the deed of grief was written in your palm, no man could touch where you had been.

I smiled and told you that you were too old to be treating poison like pop rocks,
Popping each pill in your mouth and forgetting to swallow.

Had we laughed that night at the idea that I’d outlive you? Or is that just the way I remembered it when I watched them bury you?

It shatters
Cracks
Rips the sky in half
I roll the windows down
Plunge into the downpour
Fill to my lap
Freshwater
cascades
Consumes
Small droplets trickle my forearm
Delicate bumps rise
Can you see this
It’s projecting the same
Atmospheric pressure
Foreshadowing
My breaking
Until my knees start to shake
You’re dying
You’re dying
And all you can do
Is watch the sky
Pretending it’s falling

Ripening
steady in their brutality
insecurities dripping down my thighs
I anoint the liquid as it touches the floor
the vastness that was once coddled between our fingers
now descends quicker
an illusion of control
security
close knit purity
does it matter
cuts
deepening in their impatience
while the yellow light
tricks your eyes  
yet,still nothing
no rushing warmth
pouring from inside me

You make promiscuous promises
to your aching body
tell her she’ll feast next week
if she lets you live to see the sea
you promise her ripe *******
sticky fruit
the dripping moments of honey
you tell her to ignore the tricks of his fingers
how they pull away
the tenders parts of her
you remind her she's as soft as the madrona tree
that she’s the most pungent smell of rosemary
the strength it takes for her
to live
shifts the alignments of the planets
causes disarray in each star sign
as she dips her toes
stretches her bones

he simply orbits
you remind her
she holds the resilience of each breathing forest
and though he makes his offerings
while looking for something sweeter
she is monumental in the way the world needs her.

I approached my *****
The tender charisma of something unholy haunted
Carved with my fingertips
the sacred verses
While my temple anointed fresh basins
Preparations waining
an exorcism
Chanted through pulsing
Pressure to release haunts
Hours of screams
Days of lusting
For the body that no longer begs
Wants
Where I birthed an age
Without your dark haze embedded in the sides of my rib cage
Allowed new lovers to taste
The fresh fruit
I no longer hollowed out
Begs of you