maybe
maybe i am choking
maybe the love you feed me
is poison, is ash,
maybe the hands you lay
on me are hands to harm
not to hold

maybe
maybe i am so used to
love that hurts that you
are swallowing me, stealing
all of my leftover parts
and maybe
i am such a fool
to let you.

one morning
in our kitchen
over coffee
i told you
you were the love of my life
and you didn't say it back
didn't really say anything

and i don't know why it
took me so long to realize
i was never yours.

every day
***** the air out of my lungs
a little more

and I wonder how
much longer
they expect me to keep going
like this

suffocating with a smile

fragile boy
too weak to
shoulder any
blame:

I am not the resting place
for your guilt,
for your regret,
for your shame.

and how dare you
leave me to clean up
your mess.

i think
i made you
too
much
space

when i let you in

i think in trying
to let you make yourself
at home

i gave you
real property

put your name
on the deed.

you
don't live there
anymore

don't visit
don't write
     and that's okay

we've long since
gone our
separate
ways

parallel lines

different
people

but what a greedy thing
to do

leaving
like that

but still keeping
your little plot of land.

the fear
that after all this
time, all this
mess, all this
fight

that I will only lose
you to the
war in your
mind

there's a trail of my blood
that runs from one of this
town to the other, right
up the steps to my front
door.

this town has seen
all my ugliest moments
and yet I am still here,
sleeping in the same bed
cooking at the same stove,
living in the same house
I have already grieved
so many losses in.

this town is home and hell
and I want to escape just
as much as I never want
to leave and it depends
on the sky and it depends
on the day and it depends
if I see your faces, or my own,
in all the memories it carries.