the cash saver i call,
a liminal space and
A. becomes flustered
a tower of chocolate-covered cherries
collapsing under love.

******* aisle five, tee reading
"our blood,
our sweat,
your tears"
poking at the tea
leaves, reading,
"time to leave."

i am crying walking the dog
in broad daylight!
i have sticky, smelly armpits; i
still smell like last night
toothpaste and cigarettes,
from laying in the dark trying to
weep quietly, but something
has shifted.

he thinks i am cold
i won't tell him how i am hurting
his heartbreak, as big as a dirigible
and twice as likely to go down in flames.
he feels this now,
fresh and
unadulterated,
burning icy hot,
cold hands under hot faucet.

we spent the beginning
hurting together
bloodied and laid bare,
sleeping and weeping and
bargaining.
you sob a request
for me to stay,
i've never felt so
despicable,
miserable,
a reservoir of love
for you
emptied out.

i wonder if south street ever sleeps,
or if the wawa glows eternally,
fountain drinks and day-olds overflowing
in perpetuity.

will i always be
homesick
for worse places,
people i jealously
/
indignantly
left behind?

when the shadows glow
electric blue
under orange street lights, warm
A. begins to weep
and i think,
have i made some mistake?
recallibration
still a miscalculation

i live in palaces built by your other lovers
ramshackle shacks made garish by your desire
we sleep in beds made by ghosts under sheets.
if i close my eyes,
i can pretend as well as you
that the darkness is empty,
that we are not being haunted.

i sit on your chest and
dig between your ribs,
a paralysis demon with trembling hands
malpracticing on your heart,
tiny fingers prying at
tiny doors,
masochistically longing
yearning
for proof
that i always come last,
that love only exists in your past.

i don't just love people that are hateable,
i make the people i love hateable.