I have a white tank, see through,
and I like to wear leopard print bras with it.
(neon ones, pink ones, ones that scream
looklooklookatmemememe)
Je veux faire du pied a toi
‘I want to play footsie with you’
it smells like you, after fifteen washes.
‘I want to make out with you’
it is wrung from where you gripped and spread
‘I want to *******’
it used to fit so well,
but it hangs like a torn shower curtain.
it is hard to breathe with it on,
because I cannot think of anything else except you
fuckingmeinit.
the words are frayed,
an ashy blue with speckles of snow white.
such a cool shirt, I used to think.
but you bit through it, with wolf fangs,
bit through until you punctured my skin,
drained me until I was nothing but a sac of helpless
skin.

It has French on it,
(so ******* witty)

I

want

to

forgetyou.

you see, when you first left,
it took such a long time to take out the shards
of glass, and fishing lines, and pieces of paper with
****** drawn hearts, and deflated balloons.
it took such a long time to find a needle and thread and sew all the
wounds.
it took days, months, years. and the stitches.
they were on my arms, legs, stomach, neck.
the scars did not heal until, until,
three years later.
you see, i put some scar cream. tried different
foundations.
placed different men’s hands and covered the scars with
bellowed ideas and bruises.


the scars have started bleeding, opened like
ripe tomatoes.
i do not have enough hands to cover them,
so i think i’ll sit here
until the bed soaks through.

“i hope i never lose my *** drive,”
the wind tickled as i brought my nails to your
freckles.
your fingers found my back pockets,
burying deep and grabbing,
people watched. you smirked.
“not possible”

i can taste you,
on my tongue, in between the cracks
of my canines, saturated on my
peeling lips.
and i haven’t been able to keep food down.
you are in the pockets of cheeks,
and you taste like guilt, shame,
and so much greed. greed.
i have brushed my teeth over five times today,
used mouthwash until my eyes watered.
but you are thick,
and i’m swallowing, hoping it will dissolve.

I miss you
and memory of you, it’s not as clear
as it used to be
I try to trace your voice in ink,
knowing it's impossible,
I'm still trying to see your phantom blue eyes,
but to no avail
I try to hear you but all I hear is static
coming across the ocean

Your last words to me were jumbled
uttered through a jaw left paralyzed by your stroke
and after your death
I was left to sift through the ruins of what you told me (I'll never know)
Trying in vain to decipher the hieroglyphics
of the way your hand squeezed mine
for the last time

I didn't deem myself strong enough to attend the funeral
I knew I was too shaky
to deal with estranged relatives and a cortege of black
and a symphony of muffled familial sadness
The pews full of faces chiseled from marble,
listening as a stranger gave your eulogy
I was too weak to handle witnessing
the birth of a stately widow
in the midst of an ugly cemetery
          (I always imagine how bitterly it would cost her,
       to prostrate herself in submission at your grave
     kneeling like the defeated queen
    of a fallen empire)
I did not want to see the way that what one fears,
the end
can come so abruptly
and I was selfish
I chose not to say goodbye
because I could not stand the thought of
seeing you in a quiet boneyard
amongst cold, silent stones

But maybe I should've gone
because now I know that
when you mourn
you mourn
alone

There was hardly time to be sorry
with homework and house-keeping responsibilities
now that my mother was gone
I had to do my crying
while cooking dinner or doing math exercices
Any sorrow had to be wedged
between stress and duty
all permission to grieve
was impeded, absorbed by the impassive process

It truly is terrible, the knowledge that
it could all end, it is all capable
of devastation
Every plant can wither
everything can ******* or fade
All, all
can be lost
every memory can fade through time
or will to remember

My family never mourned together,
the family in America I mean
and I believe that this is how
in each of us began
a deep isolation, though we never spoke of this,
of the absence of touch

The worst of death,
the lose of a beloved
is the separation.
I am alive. You are not.
It is terrible to survive
as unmerited consciousness

The memories I have of you
are far too few
and I will forever be left wishing
I had done more, said more, taken more pictures
The remembrance is insatiate

Sometimes I like to read the books you left behind,
and remember your passion for Latin,
the way the citations
unfurled as you gave them new meanings.
But on other days,
I keep them far and untouched
-they seem too much like tombstones
that have surrendered their worth
to your absence

Your death is yet another
ghost posed on my lips and in my thoughts:
Never
In this world, this circular reality
things can happen conclusively, decisively,
and the mind cannot reverse them:
*Never

if someone would have told me, two years ago,
that i would meet a man who would not only enter my
internal organs,
but be able to swim in my vessels without drowning
and be able to ******* over three times in one hour,
i would have laughed.
and laughed.
and laughed.