You pointed to where she'd thrown the glass against the wall and then
traced the veins of my neck with your
nails,
clammish things with a lust for
god knows what

i would drive to salt lake
just to taste the sodium on your shaky knees
to lick the inside of your eyeballs as they hover above me
for you to kiss where my arm bends and where your dimples are craters
for you to spin me over, ask me to take a shower
twist my neck into yours and say i don’t want to get my hair wet
a motel six won't know much about love like this
but i'll drop a few twenty dollar bills
so i can move into your body and whisper your name until you wake up
for you to reach across my spine and listen to our temporary neighbors
they'll scream out of love, don’t hit me, don’t hit me
and you hold your hand over my ear, and i'll fall back asleep
wake up early to make love, then drive to my job
so i can get paid minimum wage, enough to buy you a drink on a sunday night

oh my god
i am so sorry

it's just that my battery died and i drove around for hours looking for your new second floor apartment
i am sticking my fingers down my throat and i’m gagging until these ******* butterflies find their way out of my cavernous stomach

you aren’t allowed to laugh when i walk through your door with cold taco bell and red cheeks because i’m nervous
you've never seen this freckle before, you don't know my new favorite song
you rest your arms on my legs and move closer to me and we both scream because we’re gonna puke, butterflies

i ask you for a glass of water and you should ask me to leave
trembling, you don’t even use a coaster
i take a sip and stare at the tupperware on the floor, i taste dishwasher soap and it is almost enough to scare these butterflies who used to remain dormant right out of my ******* gut

waking up to bbc your alarm
clock radio was the soundtrack
to our mornings at your parents
house where they only sometimes
knew i was there but we would tip
toe but the floors creaked anyway

your purple royal platform bed with
an angel floating above it sometimes
i would accidentally kick it and say
“sorry” and you would laugh and flip
me over like a pancake we spent
national pancake day apart but we
spent other days together and we
were in love like when you’d roll a
cigarette and make me some of
your moms soup and we’d climb
the fence in our socks and they
became damp like my eyes on
the train home from the fox

you made me breakfast one day
while your mom was doing yoga
and then she asked me about
paint colours and offered to make
me a smoothie i wish i could have
said goodbye one more time
i imagined what our kids would
look like they would be beautiful
they would be beautiful wild eyed
and dark pupils we thought we almost
had a kid but we replaced her with a pill
and 5 migraines

you are a needed nap in the afternoon
a curvy spine on a midsummer bloom

a freckle on a pasty white back
you are the number one cause of heart attacks

you are a seatbelt in my grandma's car
you are a satellite mistaken for a star

you are a bedside table with sleeping pills
a hook stuck in a fishes gills

you aren't really what you seem
a quirk, a cloud, a blurry dream

if i squint my eyes you're the brightest shape
and when i close my eyes i can still see your face

we find ourselves crumpled like paper
my nosebleed acts like glue
you smell and taste like pixie dust
my eyes roll around the room

ascending towards heaven
i grip your ribs like handrails

you stop me short -
'i'm going to...'

and like a napkin under the dinner table
i’m falling off your lap

you'll remember me when you need to clean up
when you need to wipe your hands