Since you took
your last breath

The food tasted
like the bruises on your face
like the dry blood down your nose
like death

When I stood next to
your still body,
your corpse,
you

You were quiet,
I searched for you in your eyes,
but they were swollen shut

I tried to touch your face,
but the coldness of
your skin burned mine

My heart is grieving,
my skin is burning,
my eyes are bleeding,
and you are still dead

You are not the love of my life,
You are the life of my love ❤️

She said "I'm falling in love."

I said "I'm falling apart."

Oma watching
television downstairs,
while blue room sheets
squared back in peels,
& honeysuckle's ladder
up the brickwork
reached like spring fingers
towards my window,
where in brown shadows
I saw foxes steal over
the crumbling drive,
& clouds crashed trees
atop deer eating lawn
where uncle's autos coruscated
in the tall wilds.
In that bed I came of age
with thoughts of women naked -
New candles ached
and led the way deeper
as they dripped
all across my adolescence.
Years bloomed inside me,
stones fell from the sky,
hard as ***; fox bones
slept in the wood,
the televisions all sat,
idols on the lace,
flickering presses
that touched every wall.
The moon a wet thigh -
something sang,
& burrowed beneath the pillow.