full circle
I'm laying here with the window open listening to the rain for secrets or something or waiting for you to tell me what you haven't been telling me
like maybe there really is a girl out there with love in her eyes and flowers in her hair and her eyes are the kind of blue that is never mistaken for grey
she touches your chin before she kisses you, real softly or maybe she traces the spot above your lip where we all know angels rested their fingers before we were sent down here to rot or thrive
maybe you talk about gardens with her, how you'd never ever own an orchid cause that ***** ex of yours demanded one every hospital visit
how flowers aren't for boys but you'll pretend to watch football while you're really watching her bend down to touch the dirt like she used to smooth her baby brothers hair out of his little eyes
before their parents decided that it was more convenient to buy them a little apartment and keep money in the safe while they spent their pensions in Florida watching alligators and Dolphins and toucan ******* Sam but never at the same time
you see, I don't drink earl grey cause it tastes like fruit loops
and I don't eat fruit loops cause it tastes like the childhood I erased from my memory by forcing myself to dissociate
maybe this, is something else altogether
maybe this... is not true, another delusion, maybe your hands are busy counting change out for cardboard signs
maybe your feet move a little bit faster, not because you're in a rush to see someone who isn't me but because you're so scared of ending up back where you started

the average human
describes their heartbeat
as a thud-thud or a few
rough pats to the chest.

i fall asleep with my ear
pressed up against your
chest. all i can hear is the
echo of a captain yelling,
"let me sink...let me sink..."
i ask you how you would
describe your heartbeat,
you point to the ship
in the bottle mounted on
your father's bookshelf
& faintly say
"the glass bottle keeps the
ship from sinking, completely
blocking out the captain's wish
to learn how to breathe
underwater because air just
isn't doing its job with keeping
him alive."

your break up letter to me
went a little something like;

"you were built in the fire,
stop acting like you burn in it.
you were never made to be fragile,
you were never made to be my glass."

my plead for you to stay
went a little something like;

(20) Missed Calls

your final goodbye
went a little something like;

a thud thud to the pavement.

& my final goodbye was
cracking open a bottle on your
headstone & standing in the sea
with the water rising up to
my knees, with a small ship in
the palm of my hand, a dunk
underneath the tide & a faint
whisper, *"breathe."