You downed that liquid courage like there was hope at the bottom of the bottle,
And each glass that lay strewn across the floor reminded me
That this house we tried to make our home was nothing more than a wooden box
Which would, at any moment, collapse and become a casket for two;
The final vessel and resting place of our love.

I filled with tears the remains of what gave you peace every day,
Hoping you would think you overlooked a carton and had some more indulgence to enjoy,
But you knew something was different about what was left after the first time through;
And you looked at me suspiciously from that day on,
Knowing full well that you had changed something in me, and I in you.

You spoke those words with the tongue of a snake, the sting of a scorpion;
Deep into the tissue that poison traversed and tainted -
A wound so deep that it bled out quick and left me feeling drained and dry
And hollow like the ground before death calls it home;
Reassuring in me that the ghosts that were haunting me were real.

I swam to shore alone that day, tired, sore and breathless,
But when I looked back across the horizon I couldn't tell where the sky met the Earth
For everything was a reflection of everything and everything was still;
Much like the heart inside this cage you rattled so hard it broke,
Tearing the bird from it's nest and hanging me out to dry.