Understand that
feelings fall like fruit
rotting, sweet, and full of juice

you stopped the bleeding-
the pulsative nature of my heart

you cut the veins and tied them into knots
a gallon of morphine -
never enough

You made rose gardens out of marrow
and comedy shows out of love

you stopped the bleeding
I stopped the beating
we got even
and lost it all.

Before things were bad
they were really good
which is why I kept waiting
just like he knew I would

When she confessed,
no doubt the thing that had pulled her out of sleep
You said it made things different
and the friendship didn’t keep

You said,
as I drove in darkness
your eyes, the light on the road-
That if someone falls in love with you
You pack your things and go

My heart breaks for that girl from years ago
the times she thinks of you
and becomes uncertain because she knew

She loved you
she loved you
she thought it was right

To tell you all the ways
you kept her up at night

How am I to follow the mistakes
others have made
to tell you i love you

is to dig my own grave

There,
the place where I had wondered if I could ever leave
haunted by the memories that we had made
I tried to keep the company sweet
I did everything that I could do

only I was not me
and
He was not you

You loved him even after that
when the thunder came out of his body
and met you at the skin

You opened up like a shotgun
feeding the wounds with words
that never met the mirror
never came out clearer.

You loved him even after that
when the rage spilled over the rim of his cup
dousing his tongue
with the pain of you
the bitterness grew

Even after
ever after

When the nights made you hungry
and he kept you pinned under
all his lonely

You loved him even after that
You kept the scar
and swallowed the tar of his affection
opened up like a lobotomy

Even after
ever after

When he buried you
in words soaked in toxins
left you with a virus
he picked up from a married woman

You saw him even after that
even after that
never after all
never after that.

You are the closest thing to summer all year

and you are not here