friday night and i'm drowning
sweating and struggling to find the right air for my lungs
you look straight through me

and i feel like calypso
but you pulled at me with blue-veined hands
through white sand and concrete
and this is where i leave you
lips bleeding, your only loyalty to blue velvet sky

we outgrew the fort where we played lovers
still sitting inside, our heads bumping against the ceiling
plates and forks too small
and every time the clock ticks to five i think of you
striding through that door like a giant in a house of fine things

once we thought we wanted to be the greatest
and then we settled for something a few stories down
stopped wishing for skating across wood floors in socks
stopped planting lace for flowers and a sunday preacher
instead we settled for cold dinners and dead peonies in teacups

clutching pillow, laughing
turn the sound off and it looks like i'm screaming
and you're screaming too but for completely different reasons
by lamplight on creaky bed frame with a lone car zooming into the skylight

you were my moon&sun;&stars;
and for you i was the person who knew how to put your stars into constellations
i was a drowning mermaid
something seeming impossible but dangerously real at dawn's light
hands poking through teal-grey surf, clawing clawing

you stepped back and looked down, horrified and delighted
and i stopped being a mermaid and became a gold necklace
a hand adjusting that gold necklace, cool to touch on the nape
with my art school hair and sideways monday never smile

i fought through hell for you
i went through screaming at the top of my lungs
and came out on the other side, trailed by hideous, dark things

i sat on the sand
looking at the gold in my hand and thinking about how it looked bigger the last time i saw it

tonight i died
yesterday is a pebble crushed under my heel
but in time i will rise and fly backwards
swallowing deadly creatures whole, olive eyed and free
drinking rose petals and milk and bursting through brick

ashes become wind and wind blows through hollow tree
i will love again
but this time it will be me