where: wood-carved shelves arch over the kitchen window and marbled countertop sops up daylight,
half a sofa sleeps across mementos hung solemnly on a wall
where: rain descends on the balcony, drumming angrily on the spanish tiled floor while a radio plays pop!
where: water stains are scenery and the bed, a witness -
where: the smell of pancakes and the sound of mom and dad waking you up in the morning, the blankets are soft and your skin is talcum,
where: the clouds
are still
your friends -

now the clock tells time and you ask where they go

when all the furniture is gone a house will still feel full
because everyone leaves
something
of them
behind

and you are always so
full
of everyone

where: the dust settle and ghost occupy the attic
and every nook

they always forget
where you remember

that our mouths can tourniquet leaking wrists is a lie:
whereby omission is its own truth, whereby the act of forgetting
is a kind of betrayal. clock warps. to self. to forget
that our bodies know the dance
and suffer no fools: the bed is a chalk outline/ a coup/ a nest of
mottled corpses seeping at the bottom of a dumpster/
that if we boulder onto each other again theres the likelihood of
chance: which is a kind of grievance not easily payed.

what have we abandoned that we cannot spare? only what we suffer from/ what is taken/ what is discarded survive.
the gory bits. the ugly ones.
the pieces that become us.

there is so much of you
and less of me to love