in another dimension,
it's your birthday.

young things are leaving
the party through our legs.
soon, no one is left but us,
and in the dim light of the staircase
i am giving you something tangible.

in this dimension, you're asleep---
and i love you, wherever you are without me.

you: alone after sunset, gathering firewood and skimming the shoreline for bodies with your eyes (only the entire beach is abandoned by now)

me: nine thousand planets away, complacent to the decompression window reflecting my own grotesque image while alarms go off in the other room

you put scars on my body
where no one could see and
said they’d be there forever

less than a year later
my body has rebuilt itself
with no memory of you