women don’t die,
they vanish into thin air or
they melt
into a puddle on the linoleum.
plath didn’t die,
she dropped the deadweight —
see: her headless body on the kitchen floor
bloated & ready for consumption.

All the **** that I said
about how ****** up your heart is
now seems to be stripped off
lying on the bedroom floor

And the clock on your wall
is tic-talking to me now
tail dancing to secrets
its cat eyes motion to the door

But your head on my chest
weighs me down like an anchor
keeps me under the lighthouse
drowning just off the shore

And the worst of it is
you know exactly what you're doing
and you know what it takes
to have me crawl back for more

Every so often, we
/ become fish out of
/ water on a dock

flailing about for a
/ bit, then right back where
/ we ought to be

tell me about
                     you

not that
hum drum shell like
fake western tourist traps

let me in

you kept to yourself

and that makes everyone wonder, now
that you're gone

and I tried to explain that sometimes there's
nothing you can do to change
someone's mind, no sense
wondering whether a
simple good morning
would have kept
you around

hindsight is 20/20, but
nobody saw that coming

I'm slightly out of
practice, a bit bent
out of shape like a
paper clip faced with
Rhode Island's taxes

at first glance, it might
seem as though I have
forgotten all I
once knew

first glances are rarely
accurate

what I do know is the
things that make you
you in your own
words, things like
cooking or
poetry or
smiles

these things don't die, they
hibernate until you're
smart enough to
wake them up