I'm always spilling your
name on strangers tables,
and it's like watching
bottles break beneath
my feet.
Somehow I think
it will give me validation
for the razor blades
inside my throat.
Or explain why
I never close that *******
window
when I conjure up
the pulse
to take a shower.
But then I recall,
while cursing your name
through shattering teeth,
that it reminds me
of the way you dug
your fingers
in my chest,
and pretended to be blind
when you saw blood
across the sheets.

Sometimes
when I'm driving home
from school,
I'll see your face
inbetween the trees
but this version of you
is just a smudge
of passing scenery
leaving as fast
as I remember.

I'll see you in the simple things.
Ile six
in the grocery store
across the street,
between the pages
of the books I read,
in the laugh
of my chemistry teacher
when the boy
who sits behind me
tells a ***** joke.

I see you in the things I can't escape.

I feel you
crawling on
my skin
in early hours
of the morning
and I keep trying to scratch you out
but the wounds are getting worse
and my mother won't stop asking

And for so long
I thought you were
the one that
consumed me
but here I stand
with your taste
still on my tongue.