I've never been much of an artist,
but I will paint a portrait
of kisses on your chest,
if you let me.
Matisse has nothing on
the beauty the comes from
the collision of
my lips and your neck,
your lips and my neck.
We are paintbrush and canvas,
both.
The curvature of your lips
belongs in a museum.
I'm keeping it
for my private collection.
My awe cements me
to the bed.

I had forgotten how good the fantasy feels.

I dream soundly without him
when the memory of his hands
puts these tired lungs at ease.
I play with 'hope' on my tongue.
It's beginning to taste sweet.

I will hold him in my arms soon.
We will warm our bellies
with whiskey again,
and I won't walk home alone
this time.

We've grown up in the snow,
with winter in our veins,
something visceral and uniform.
He knows what to do with
these freezing hands of mine.
I ****** my lip
with bite marks
at the thought.

I am leather-bound and blank;
he has so many ways
to fill me up.

You said I meant the world to you

because I was the one person

who had never given up.

I was a name

you hadn’t yet added to that list.

You mistook that for love.

I will never give up on you;

that’s the truth.

I will never give up on the notion

that one of these days

you’ll find a way to be happy. 

But it will be with another girl

in another land, 
far from here. 

I pray you never set foot on the soil I’ve tread.


I will give up on us. 

I will give up on the fantasies.

I will never exist to you 

outside of your own self-interest 

and that’s okay.

But that doesn’t mean I have to live with it.

That doesn’t mean I have to stay.

I will never give up on you.

I will give up on you, with me.

This isn't home,
but I will nestle in for the season
and pretend that I belong.
I will bury my face in the curve of his shoulder
and let him play with my fingers
through Nepalese gloves
and he won't even ask
what's going on in that
pretty little head of mine.
We speak of snow and poetry
and all of the girls in his bed
and he admires how straight my spine is
despite the cracks of voice.

I don't think about the distance anymore.
I swear, your name is on my tongue,
to everyone.
I make the effort to say nothing,
only to find I have nothing left to say.
After you,
nothing holds enough importance
to make a conversation of.
I can predict what he will text back
but you,
just when I think I know who you are,
a different man faces me.
I think they all know
that I'm growing tired of these guessing games.

His first words to me
asked if she and I were old high school friends.
“We just met.”

All we did was watch and listen.
There was small talk,
but at the first strum
he and I were gone.

I could see him from the corner of my eye,
across the table.
We were just
two bodies,
two drummers’ hearts,
moving rhythmically,
feeling the same thing.
Close, but never touching.
She pulled me away
so I could catch my breath.

I stayed at the back of the room,
above all of the shadows
and the purple lights.
I found him again after it all,
drawn back.
He smiled but his eyes
were just so lost.

He offered stories and questions
and a solo cup of Jameson,
promising something unspoken.
I stained the rim with lipstick
and apologised
but he drank from it anyway.
We drained it, together,
between the shuffling of feet,
the money of strangers,
and his hand on the small of my back.

He asked about my plans for the night
and I couldn’t find the words to say
that I couldn’t think past this moment
with him.
He was every future thought.

He left in a van,
crowded with people,
dragging behind a trailer of cases and guitars,
going somewhere far away.
I left on foot at midnight,
slipping on sidewalk ice,
with a dead phone battery
and a belly full of whiskey.
I fell asleep in my bed,
not knowing how I got there,
but feeling its emptiness
more viciously than usual.

I’ll see him again.

This house feels so very small.
I can still count the number of steps in the dim-lit stairway.
I can still find the light switch with my eyes closed.
But this is only a vague familiarity.
I keep dropping the bath towel
Stepping into the shower
Because I anticipate a hook
That is no longer there.
The light echoes differently here.
I’d forgotten how it feels
To wake up at 3am,
Shivering.
I’d forgotten just how thin these walls are.
I didn’t even know that there was a lock on the bedroom door.
I learned it quickly.
I won’t forget the sound of fists pounding against cracked wood.

My comfort is in
The line of empty beer bottles by my bedside
And a foreign voice on the phone,
Reminding me that this will all be over soon.
The only thing that’s certain
Is that my home isn’t here anymore.

It sneaks up on me, some connection
Between my sleeping subconscious
And the universe itself.
I have this dream, this nightmare, this reality:

Her thin limbs entangled with his.
Her mousy hair shimmering in the morning sun;
(I’ve dyed the same colour from mine for years,
But on her, he finds it endearing.)
He kisses her.
It is not memorable,
But everyone remembers.
She is his little secret.
The poems become hers.
I find no liberation from my love for him;
He grants me no such release.
I keep holding on to the thought, the fantasy,
While she holds his body against hers,
Naked and fleshy and warm.
It is her name he whispers.

I wake up in a cold sweat,
And I feel like vomiting.