i find with surprise
red wine is sweet
paired with the
absence of you
it sits on my tongue
soft like a kiss
solemn like a prayer
my thirst, my hurt
is soothed
completely

the letters used to taste vanilla sweet
they now stick in my throat cloyingly
it is so hard to pronounce,
a four syllable reminder of you
the shape of your name
has its edges sharpened
has its corners sticking out

(my mouth moves to kiss the air before tugging
the corners of my mouth back into a sneer
then i open my mouth twice, chomping
at the ends of your name, ending in a scream)

i used to trace it nightly
the slopes of your initials in my palms -
it was a river bend in its grace
it was a story in gentle motion
it was daybreak with lilac skies

now, your name is stuck in my throat
refuses me relief, refuses me reprieve
in a decade, in a second
perhaps then it will stop hurting
and yet the thought of that scares me
i want your name to hurt -
it is, i think, some semblance of love
i want to choke in it before i give it up

you’re spoiling me
my insides and guts in disarray
yellow fungi, can’t you see?
cover every word i say

to you, this is preservation
keeping things in standstill
to me, this is degradation
going bad so slowly kills

see the thin white maggots lie
and how they happily feast upon
the meaty flesh of you and i
is this still part of all the fun?

i want to pick us up
and push us back into a year
but i have a strange feeling
we would still end up here
this is why they call it a tragedy
the end was always clear

i had a dream - you and i
were forty-ish in a room
stuck at some premiere,
maybe yours, maybe mine
our eyes would meet
and i think, or maybe i hope
neither of us would look away
and you would finally smile
and i would smile
and that would be enough

i think i’m better than this
lying in a hole next to the ditch
so now, i’m going to write you
relentlessly
i’m going to put my pen to the paper
and make you ******* bleed
did you think you’ve heard the last of me?
baby, i’m just starting
i think i’m going to write a story
where you and i get to kiss
before i leave you, leave you, leave you
in the footnotes, in the margins
squish your ******* heart
into the ink

you don’t have to ask
it’s one of those things
we learn in school
you know, fun facts?
a scorpion stings,
the sky is blue,
and i love you
and i love you