when i first kissed you the whole universe around us ceased to exist. all i knew was you. all i felt was you, your hands running under my shirt, up my thighs, around my hips. all i tasted were your lips; all i smelled was your skin, that cheap cologne i couldn't get enough of. i didn't want it to happen this way. i didn't want to fall for someone who only loved the skin i was in. i want to shed my skin like a snake and emerge as a new person. i want to be unrecognized by you in a new beauty. i want you to be mesmerized by the new person i've become. i want another chance for you to fall for me, too. i want you to care. but i've stopped. i've stopped caring about the amount of times i go to your house, the amount of time we spend in your bed, the money on train tickets from my house to yours and back. i don't care if we're caught. i don't care if we're not. nothing matters because this doesn't matter.

we woke up together, enveloped in each other and your bedsheets, to the sound of soft wind chimes in your bedroom window and cars driving past your home. your room smells like your cologne and the laundry detergent my mother used when i was young. you lazily half moaned, half murmured, "good morning, love," and you, with your dazed condition and morning breath, found my lips and met them with yours. you pulled me in closer and ran your fingers gently through my messy, tangled hair, and i inhaled your scent so deeply i could feel it softly settle in the bottoms of my lungs. the morning sun shined through your bedroom window and the shadows of the trees outside danced in the wind along your baby blue bedroom walls. you ran the tips of your fingers gently in sporadic loops along my shoulder blade and spine. we lay there and took it all in, took each other in, our legs intertwined and my head against your chest. for these few minutes i found myself wishing we could live infinitely in these small, precious moments, the ones we take for granted, the ones we only remember when the big picture is gone. i snuggled closer into your arms and we drifted back to sleep, heartbeats synced and bedsheets entangled in our legs.

What whispered words
linger on our longing lips,
they go unsaid at the hands
of our fingers tips.
These touches talk like old friends,
o’ how familiar
the conversation feels,
even after all these years.

Undress your formal tongue
and we will speak with the slang
we spoke when we were young,
when our bodies were still foreign,
even to us.
We were explorers consumed
not by god, glory or gold
but by lust.

So if we must speak
let it be with our skin pressed,
hot breath on sweat glistened *******,
biting at the napes of our necks
and fingernails breaking flesh.
In the morning we may regret
but we're both here because
we cannot forget.

I promise
this is not a reconciliation,
this is only ***.

my house feels the emptiest when it's full
the scent of home made food and the sound of my sister's voice both parade out of the kitchen through the rest of the rooms like a new orleans funeral trumpet
laugh all you want, i know you still look at me like i ****** your husband
laugh all you want, i know you'd rather go home to get high in the garage
laugh all you want, just remember to remind your mouth to smile when you do
you smell like ash and misery and leave traces of it everywhere you go and if it wouldn't leave you lonely, you'd look at the cigarette in my hand and say *this is all your fault