He is the morning and I have turned into a walking cliché machine.
The sun could sap the day out of my skin and I wouldn’t feel it,
wouldn’t mind if I did.
I want to crack him open and curl up in his chest cavity,
exploring the dark corners with my headlamp and uncovering hidden majesties in geodes, making road maps.
~
Sometimes, I look at their hands,
moving in time to the beat or
engaging in some twisted alchemy,
making circles out of straight lines, or
coaxing the music out of guitar strings, or
painting the unknown like clockwork in due time,
and I wonder what they could do to me in bed.
~
And I still let him touch me when I'm drunk and he's drunk or when I'm sober and he's drunk-he doesn't want to touch me when he's not drinking-because he's like a cigarette and I've made a habit of inhaling deeply, to remind me that he’s cancer in my bones and I’m getting too old for this.
He treats me like the used tissues I crumple in my purse and pull out when my nose gets runny, there when he needs me, stroking my rib cage and covering me in a viscous slime.
He feels like a stubbed toe or a paper cut and mostly I'm a mouth to *** into.
His hands find the parts of my body that people have always told me to keep secret, but it's been a while since I started sending them out on postcards to strangers.
He can grab me with his eyes like a hand grabs the nape of a kittens neck, and I falter.
~
How can I unlove someone I used to love so much?
Mother may I-help me-stop loving all of them at once.