Here is where the waves spray
Into your face and slide down,
In the sun it seeps inside and
You can’t get it out.
...
You left me alone to
Swim inside of our memories
Until I was pruned all over,
Until the scars didn’t show.
......
You didn’t want me before those
Thirty days into summer
When you waded out too deep
And felt the current sweep you back.
...
You kept your head down, like mine
You ****** in what was two molecules away
From your salvation, a salty, unholy substitute.
Always drowning yourself with all the wrong substances.
...
You swam back ashore two months too late,
After I was cocooned dry,
I was not waiting for you by the lighthouse
It shouldn’t surprise you – you never asked.
...
“It had always been my plan,”
You breathed into my side,
To leave me too far in the depths.
You are the reason why I learned to swim.

I told him I wanted love and
He told me I was delusional.
You climbed into the clouds
Before she said you’d fall out
Of them. Stars shattered on the
Sidewalks, and their dust painted
Over by layers of graffiti.
He told me that this was it.
I said,
This cannot be all
That there is.

“Stay happy!”
I guess we didn’t.
I leave in a week and
It just feels weird.
You were in my dreams last night,
And the night before.
“I don’t believe you”
- It’s still true.
You’ve started a war.
It actually isn’t bad,
Just some moments.
Good bargain.
“Do it for me!”
It’s okay,
Time will tell.
“I’ll see you again one day.”
(Eventually.)
Did it hurt?
It’s still better than before.
“I’ll win.”

She has always been loud and angry about
Her sadness.
She reaches into our rooms, plucks us up,
Sends our arms around her body
And piles her tears into the nooks of our clavicles.
I never learned how to reach like that.
My position was always upright, tense,
Resisting as much as I could
Without going back on my role.
I’m still not used to people touching me out of happiness.
I’m still not used to
Touching people, period.
I was brought here the same as each on both ends:
Large mouths and balled fists always on the verge of ready,
But we knew how to retreat when the world
Bound itself inside of you, heavier than
Your own heartbeat.
I’m not entirely sure which to call normal.
The way that she pours herself into our emptiness
And refuses to back away,
Or the way that we know to suffocate ourselves
Before ever, ever
Moving this into someone else.

He asked if she danced
She said, "only in my red" -
He asked if she bled.

Our story never
Began, which is why I know
It is not over

You found yourself on
The bottoms of coffee mugs
You filled them back up