Lunch rush was hell for the new girl,
stacking foamed cappuccino cups
and stirring spoons in a broken-handled
bus tub while trying not to slip
on soft ice and discarded lemon
wedges. She took our mugs,
and told us about a guy

—Dave, she said. I don't know.—who sat
with his friend, comparing *** to work
over the rusted cabinet tracks
of his warped fork scraping
his egg-caked plate.
Dave's friend was leaned in
with a cocked grin waiting
for one of Dave's "Classic Dave" punchlines,

which I'm guessing are all witty,
the funniest *******
things you've ever heard,
but there wasn't one
this time

because there's nothing funny about
a ***** intern cringing beneath the weight
of fat Dave and his brick
paperweight jammed in her back.

You came up my throat like the last overdosed pill
I can’t even remember how you got here against my will
So I tried to paint you in colors that weren’t real
Now I need back the parts I let you steal.

I compare your eyes to the red autumn sky
There’s a whole world inside your pupil, a whole world high
You said you weren’t special
But you slowed train tracks with your hands, and then brought them back again

I told everyone regrets get left behind in the hills of summer
But kissing someone new isn’t making the seasons go by
You were my favorite way of passing time

I can’t pretend anymore
I want to love again
Please hold my hand
I’ve been around a time or two
And no one gets me to feel like you

Cross your heart and hope to
tie me to the bed before
I call my sister for a ride.
I tried to pay you back tonight,
to say I'm sorry for the blackened
salmon that your stomach couldn't handle,
but I only managed "Look
at all the ways we stayed in love."

Because sure,
I trust you.

I trust you like I trust the
fridge-reach condiments
I smear onto my plate
before I find the time to read
the expiration date and part
with what will only hurt me more.

You're not in love,
you just like
entertainment.
Blood boiling,
tense muscles
put your mind
at ease.

You're not kissing,
you just like
the gesture of hope:
the softer the lips
the harder it is
to walk away.

You quote their texts
like you're quoting
scripture.
The tweets you study
cause your heart
to freeze.

You're like a god
without a people:
You're looking
for anyone
to believe
in you.

I dreamt about
a ****** t.v.
movie.
I put myself
in a lover's shoes.
I said, "You're
not that lonely
but you like
the attention.
And I guess
I'd like to
give it
to you."

Standing on the scenic overlook,
(the one just a few miles out)
the city lights shine brighter than stars--
multicolored luminescence burning
its image on the insides of my eyelids,

and you, who drove me here,
(some 3AM adventure created
from a series of “I-don’t-know”s)
inch closer to the precipice,
sinking knee-deep in snow before
facing me with eyes that seem
backlit by street lamps and 24-hour signs.

You told me how you so loved
the feeling of being awake and alone,
while the city slept and yet--
I felt only loneliness,
stinging silence scratching marks,
my ribs battered from working
too hard, and I could feel them
cave in beneath solidarity’s weight--

alone, though you stood beside me
speaking of snowflake matters
that melted as they touched my ears,
your words dripping into my hair,
wasted on a mind preoccupied
with retrospective tunnel-vision:

First: the morning I woke to find my mother
screaming and stomping loud,
her plate broken on the carpet and
when she left, my father’s eyes, they
turned to sea-glass as he stood blank
(gone, I suppose, in a different way),
leaving me responsible for my little sister,
who hid behind the corner.

Then: the time I found my little sister
crying into my jersey-knit sheets and
asking me to help her skip school--
she couldn’t bear to face the boys
whose uninvited touch lingered
painful on her adolescent skin
(self-inflicted cuts would appear
in the following months)--
the memory drowned with whiskey and ***.

Later: my mother’s cancer--
no, liver failure that nearly killed
everyone who waited in the white-walled
hospital, bad food sour on our tongues,
stomachs cramping hard as if we felt
the surgery deep inside our own livers--
and I with my classwork, face buried,
because no one should see me cry.

I suppose the sandbag solidarity fell upon me
in parts, dragged me from lofty childhood,
each moment a simultaneous end and beginning
to all that followed and held me far behind--
further still, though you stand only
one foot away from me, near enough to reach
(and I can imagine my hand outstretched)--
somehow the cityscape seems closer.

In high school, I used to crawl
past my dad’s side of the bed so I could whisper,
at midnight, to my mom that I was leaving
and going to your place, and that I’d be back
by five in the morning, because I was that good girl
in the knee-high socks with the headband
that matched my uniform. So, I told my mom
that I was going over, watched her sleepy eyes
drift back to her pillow corner. I’d start my car,
put on that sappy John Mayer song you hate,
but know I love, and head through the center of town
on the ghost roads, driving like a memory
with four wheels and only three more miles to go.
You’d let me in the back door, careful not to shut the door
to the kitchen too tight, and we’d kiss
under the aquarium light.

I’d watch the shatters
of light split with the blades of your ceiling fan
as you’d remind me over and over again
with your words that I couldn’t stay long
while your hands pulled me in closer to your chest.

You were the first bad thing I let myself have.

I’d have to leave before your dad would get up for work,
so I’d pull on my sweatpants, wipe the makeup
from beneath the crease of my eyes, kiss you goodbye
for who knew how long it would be that time, and I’d cry
in the car the whole way home
because I knew that we were like grains of sand
in an hourglass
just waiting for our turn to fall.

A ghost used to dance in my mirror--
she moved like a picture taken in motion,
though her dress remained still as the background.
But she has since stopped dancing and
grown bruises beneath marigold eyes.

Once, she whispered to me “It’s not your fault,”
but her breath reeked of rotten flowers
left too long in a molding vase--
her skin delicate as dried viscaria petals,
flaking and crumbling ever since

a man’s uninvited touch lingered there.
She stands pretty from across the room,
though her beauty is measured by the distance
I have forced between us--
five feet and counting.

You are my personal taste of sorbet, sun-tan lotion, botched
slices of the sun that sit on my tongue like pills
before I swallow. I hate necessity, and crave your entity
in ice cream scoop sizes. I want to pull the batteries out of your back,
**** the juice onto my palette and spit it back into your eyes
so maybe you can feel the sting you left me with when you pushed
my heart off the side of the bed while pulling your pelvis closer to my head.
I hate when we’re cooking and you slide ice cubes down my shirt,
but did you know that’s the only time I ever felt anything
from you that wasn’t warm and bitter and bruised? I think
that sometimes your nightmares even scare me.
I can feel them when you sleep,
your arm flinching beneath my neck, how you curl
your toes against my calves and grind your teeth like you’re trying to fit
your square memories into the oval-shaped hole of my spine.
I get that that’s why you’re a little crooked, but you used me
to straighten yourself like the post a tomato plant wraps its stem around.
You took all the nutrients from my center and fed yourself.
You are the palm tree in my snow globe, but no matter
many times I shake you
the snow still falls on my shoulders.