i

I can’t tell you

how much I miss you

without tearing 
a few pages from your rib

ii
setting your eyes on fire 
begging you not to beg me 
kissing me whilst I try 
not to plant these memory seeds on your lips

iii
they grow into thorns 
piercing my life 
into a sore pink 
like watermelon flesh

iv**
you were born to be remembered , not missed

being missed means you eat up people’s memory space 
leaving them full of you 

but empty of now
and lost searching for a shadow of your smile

you told me that
drinking
was bad for me
I told you that my
numbness
was worse than any shot of liquor  
it's getting difficult to wake up
again
and I wish I could be a
better
friend
and I feel so bad for the people
who love me against their will

you're
hurting
too and I don't know what to say
because I'm
not
sure that it will be okay

this doesn't mean anything
and I hope that means something

**let me hold your hand

I met you four years ago
and I hated you .

four years later ,
and we are holding each other
on you mattress , and I'm
stuck between finding warmth
in arms that aren't mine ,
and mining trees to make sticks .

you always end up holding me .
you always end up holding me .
you always end up holding me .

and I'm realizing now
that you aren't holding me
so that I will feel better ;
you are holding me because
you see me cracking
and you see the pieces of my
heart breaking off into your hand
and you don't walk away .

you're good at making things ,
and you know how to
put it back together .

and it scares me
that you take so much time
and care into looking at each
piece and finding its place .
because you see things
that I haven't seen .

maybe you're an angel
sent from god to prep me for
eternity ,
or maybe you're a demon
sent from hell
as a house-warming gift ,
but at this point
it doesn't matter ;

just as long as I got to keep you
for a little while .

we talked about it at my place and yours
but mostly I mourned
seeing the socks pulled over your
ankles

while walking across streets during rain.
how warm
like a second skin, they rubbed

against my thighs and it chafed and you
kept cotton to shove down
our throats
when being broken felt like too much

for two people so in love
and so far apart.

I don’t love you anymore,
but
the echo
is still there
from when I told you I did.

i wish someone would think
"we're spreading Red
too thin"

The first thing you
and I had in common was not having chicken pox scars.

If you are searching for where perpetual love is not
look at the last bed I will sleep in
where your father died
and moss built his corpse a second beard, wide as
a noose. Nature gave me two hands -

one for holding my head underwater, another for pulling
myself back up.
I can only replace those who are not dead.

The skin between my thighs
smells the way that yours used to, the scent I worshiped
like expensive perfume. I now realize it is
just sweat.

That is the second thing we had in common
after the 500 times I acted as someone you once loved.