I scrape the crust at the folds of your reflection.

it’s dismaying to know we’ve to retire yet another door.

I keep tasting grey everywhere I go. I wish something would surprise me.

every day blends into the next,

a cocktail with no flavour but plenty of potency,

drowning memory and time into glasses of obsolescence.

so I go on burying my ichor in dirt.

you, in your temperamental Lethe —

you can mourn your loss and

you can lash your back in repentance and

you can swear you’ll never let your heart beat in your hands again and

you can swallow each year of sorrow like a bitter pill and

you can chase it with the poison of amnesia to **** the ghosts of loss and

I will stay on my toes because hope is petulant

and she knows how to resuscitate the dead

even when lungs and worlds collapse.

I’ve lived in goodbyes for long enough to know their taste in words

but you never let me kiss them off your lips so I’ll breathe —

and I’ll hope that hope does what she can.