arms rip away at this skeletal heart without question:
a useless muscle that means nothing to me if i can't hold you.

open up your eyes, beloved.
just because i'm dead doesn’t mean
i can’t love you in this bed
during the night.

for today imagine that this is mutual.
that i am not a ghost and you are not
bound to sunsets with men that don’t
share my exact eye color.

let me lie to you. explain that i don't
******* to shadows ******* anymore,
cross my heart and hope to die.
(i hope you remember that
a heart can beat and still
long for grave-sites).

i know this isn’t a coffin
because i am burning
and you are always here at my side.

pull me up from this
necrophiliac-night-club
and we'll go on

as if you've never found those
maggots in my sock drawer.

i promise.

you
hide the other
lovers in the
back corner of
our closet. found
one with her heart
torn out only yesterday.
still bleeding and
asking for you.

despite the
crime scene
i still
think you are
beautiful.
i still
think you are
worth waiting for.

i see you through
a clear window.
and you look back
from a shattered
******* mirror.

can't even look me in the eyes.
after today, i won't laugh
away the hurt.

you've turned me
into a heartbroken
cliche. i don't even
hate you for it.

people have a funny way of showing they care:
i wake up on the right side of bed and wonder
where you really are. the left side is untouched
and misses you, sheets wrinkled because during
the bad nights i reach out for a ghost.

months are passing by,
as they’re meant to.
thinking of you hurts.
thinking of you is killing me.

though all is forgiven;
i know you’ll find the way
to our bed eventually.

we played catch-up
a few weeks back
over cooling coffee
in my old-to-me/
new-to-you
apartment.

"sorry it’s been so long."
you muttered into
the mug, steam clawing
upwards between us. we avoided
eye contact at all costs and allowed
ourselves to pretend we were
elsewhere.

i almost hated you.

winter is here and in my
heart, with only
you to blame for
bringing this *******
apparition into my home.

the season you left in
has a certain chill
that won’t ebb under
today’s sun.

"it’s fine." i smiled
unconvincingly and
placed my coffee to
the side. hands sliding
across the kitchen
table and over your own.

a subtle shiver ran down my spine
as your hands turned around to grip mine
lightly. they were colder than the outisde
snow storm.

i acknowledged my fluttering
chest with a small nod of the head that
made your lips turn up crookedly.
i loved you like that.

eventually,
i took you
to my bed
and we
stayed there
for hours
almost like
lovers.

everything
felt warmer
that way.

morning
threw
itself
between
us;

and that’s when
you found there
were no coffee
grinds left.

"i’ll go to the store." you reassured
me in a deep voice, forgetting to smile
down at my small form. despite
the easygoing grin, i knew you
wouldn’t come home. so i watched
as you tromped down the apartment
stairs and into the waking world
without saying goodbye.

days passed
and there was still no sign of you.
i wasn’t surprised.
living under a roof that lacked
all forms of coffee proved harder
than i thought. and of course,
it was your fault.

days got slower and turned into
fading snapshots i can barely remember now.
i was stuck with a vision of you in my mind
on replay through those insufferable days
and nights. smiling at me like the rest of the
world couldn’t possibly matter.

at one point,
i’d left you a series
angry voicemails.
all i wanted was
to hear you
say my name
again.

that was the day
your mother called
me to let me know
that you’d been hit
right off of 32nd street.

on
the way back
from grocery shopping.

all they could find at the scene:
a body,
torn clothing,
and
two bags of expensive coffee.

now i’m still in our bed.
looking to your side
and wondering
where all that
faith had gone.

and it still hurts.

we were all born from
challenged ancestral thought -
refracting in such a way against
our flimsy souls
that would
build us up gradually:
    (from the drowning
           beta-fish to the asphyxiated
                                              dove).

showing us how absolutely
okay it was
to recognize
a distant gaze belonging
to one on the brink of another
terribly lonely silence.

coupled with sighting
a trembling bone structure --
we could find yet another
sign of “Get Me Out Of Here” or
“Those Walls Better Keep Their Distance”
without one or ten stigmas attached to the core.

auto-pilot would really do us all a favor if
we could think objectively for more than
a few seconds: throw a side of coping mechanisms
into the mix while we’re off creating the perfect
human. but god, just save more than a handful
of our loves tonight.

if only we could learn to note
the difference between a
barely-there sigh that screams
“This Is Only A Yawn” vs.
“More Than A Coffee Crash”

perhaps we’d all find each other well-off
and striving for that sense of unimaginable
hope we can see every poet clawing for;
trapped in the depths of their
own abyss. they can’t find
the EXIT sign. can you even
salvage a reading light?

this world can only flourish
outwards from here on out:
I swear to you.
if only we can pry that mind
open and teach it to love
a little bit more than
the revolving planets
in their universes.