you said you came twice but I
never felt you tighten around me.
I

wish you would look at me when it happened so I could see
what you looked like when
you peaked.
I couldn’t take my

eyes off your ribs as you
pushed each breath between
the bones.
You look happiest when you face away from me.

I’ve counted the pale hairs on your arms and I know

exactly what you look like the moment you fall asleep
but
you’ve pushed me into corners at parties
and
you hit me with a pan last week
and never apologized
and
when I tell you I miss you, you say
“How? We just spent 5 hours together.”

The first time I saw you
you were sitting in an empty bathtub,

a beer in one hand, and frat boys smoking joints around you

you said you’d never seen Star Wars
and you used to catch moths as a child.

You repeated my name twelve times that night
while I grabbed your hair
and your nails carved letters into the bark of my body.

Your face pressed my chest
and now it presses a pillow.

Your sighs sound exhausted,
not exalted.

I told you I loved you and
you said
“That word is used far too often.”