I can sleep with you,
but I can’t be asleep with you.
I can drive you mad
bent over the headboard
of your expectations,
but I can’t meet them.
What you are looking for
does not hide between my legs
panting for salvation;
it hides trembling in the bend of an elbow,
tucked away in tracks that mark the spot.
Treasure coves lie in the hollowness
of my sunken eyes
and under the thickness
of my bitten tongue
until the only thing I can taste is
the bitterness of my laughter
like a hangover
from too much sweet talk the night before.
Some nights,
the holes in our conversations
"with the lights on"
leave me crucified between
two lines I should have never crossed to begin with.
Other nights,
I am stretched out across the entire room
and your eyes touch nothing
but the bathroom floor we grouted together
with our spines.
The backbone for this poem
isn’t your unattached vertebrate,
but the committed soft spot
behind my promising kneecaps
that give out each time
you ask me
when I’m coming to bed
because a mattress
may be the sole platform for this love,
but your sheets
can’t cover the indifference in my touch.