you don’t face me when we sleep
and I lie awake, composing couplets of it
then you palm at my lips and mumble
secrets                   I wish I would have kissed you
that night in the rain I wish you would have
  
kissed my toes when I pulled them
from their dripping socks and laid in your bed.

we come up with a hundred excuses not
to touch but I see lost love everywhere and resent
not bringing it to my breast  
     the lonely hate the fulfilled because they

  are kind of dead          we pile our emotions into
the bathtub until water dilutes them to fine
powder                      we build concoctions of

not knowing what the opposite ***
feels like even they’ve purpled my heart with
a bruise and cannot sleep in bed with you
       he whispers        I wish we would have kissed
so you were not lonely I wish you were my toes.