Like a snake unhinges its jaw—pink cheek exposed—

to something warm and whole, I unhinge you over and over and over again in my mind when I need to shed away every time I told you I would visit,

when I need to shed away that night we drank a cheap six pack in my tangle of blankets,

when I need to shed away the songs you wrote about blue eyes,

when I need to leave only the raw, scaly bits of you—the bits I scraped away at and made real, not the girl four hours away with the name I always mispronounce,
not the pieces she only barely notices when you leave her side, or the pieces you left for me to find, scattered on my windowsill.

I unhinge the moment your forked tongue first formed the words “I love you,"

the day I took pictures of you playing my guitar with the missing string—you said you didn’t need it anyway.

I think about the wrongs we righted when I slept in your car with your hand on my head, and I know I can’t come close to chewing our problems over, so I swallow them whole.