the hair on your fingers
the hair on your toes
the hair in your mouth from
laughing too hard
everything can be found elsewhere
for some other reason
than the one you first thought
and now i know that here
right here
on this cement
next to the palm tree
dying for the winter
that we are how we set that table
that the dish can be a bowl
the fork can be a ladle
and the kettle can
hold more than just tea
and trinkets of the past that
you can't trust your
dresser draws to keep
because here i am
next to the blocked stairwell
and i know that i am elsewhere
somewhere new
because i chose a different reason
than the one given to me

the scent of depression must be strong because he told me he smelled like me hours after i was gone, that he could feel the clouds i left with him and the burden of my worries was too heavy too  bare for too many moments at a time, that he could feel the sores upon my knees and that the rips in my skin left him cold in the winter, which never ended because biology never will, and he reminded me of all the dreams we never spoke of and all the times he woke up knowing i had done the same, that the urgency he felt, the tears he tried to wipe away, they were mine alone and not for sale but he bought them any way, he told me that he had purchased this for the meaning of salvation, that he planned to make due on his promises, to follow through, to go farther than my weak legs could carry me, and then he told me of his time in hell and his time with the devil himself, he told me that he knew my aches like no other and at the same time he could never find the source of the ****** knuckles he kissed so much, the ones he would wrap with utmost care and caress until i fell asleep, he told me that this was what it felt like to be in love with me, that he couldn't bare the storm, but he wanted to anyway, he told me that death in my embrace was something too precious to be given up on, that rewards only came with sacrifice, and that one day his woes would fall on me