I loved you
and such is the most succulent sorrow
to be written over like one scar upon another,
erased and retold, I can hardly remember
the way your fingers intwined with mine
and settled like the roots of the tree
resting in the front yard of our minds.
The gated iron face was weakening,
left, unattended by our neglect, our
endless longing.
The path was smoothed out for us.
I didn't desire to work in the coal mines
for you,
lungs, black and tender, to hold in
the weight of your laughter and me,
caged,
hummingbird.
So persistent is the exit wound
between two broken ribs.
You would kiss the scar tissue.
Tell me all would be well and I would
weep because how could it ever be so
lovely as it was before my fears rose
to the surface like a bloated porpoise bobbing
with the current and I'd stretch out my arms like I am
declaring allegiance.
To the starlit collisions that illuminate
this fate we were committed to from the start,
to the god I dare to mock:
once I loved you,
and you, I.
Once I lied.