“Don’t consider my words the sick
ecstasy of a sick mind, but you are
for me perfection!”
- Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot

I remember
I can taste blood
on the roof of my mouth

I remember her face the first time
I asked her to coffee
when it rippled in a minor
hemorrhage of surprise
like the request was unexpected
but maybe
I hoped
hoped for

holding fiery cider in her hand
she was word and color transfused
when she spoke
she was celluloid and strawberry blond
and her smile looked like water
racing over rubies and the years
that I had waited
to meet someone like her

her hair was tied back
in a hurricane of dim gold
her voice spun out veins of thought
fluid and manic as magma
but brilliant like serrated ice
I remember

the cardial whiplash
when she said she would like to do this again
the sanguine dreams that came
after giddy toss and turning
turned to sleep
the saccharine thought
that I might be with her

suddenly washing away
leaving only the clean sting
from the bluelit photograph
of her having coffee somewhere else

my sheets grew thicker
as I stared
I did not blink
I just drank in cold acceptance
of the stranger staring back beside her

as the palpitating hope stopped
and the sunk aorta darkened
there were no feelings
save the ones that
I remember

I can still taste blood
on the roof of my mouth