this place is my bedroom, but different.
it’s like everything has been shifted
an inch to the left, so practically, everything
is the same, but it’s unsettling. it’s off.
there’s a space where my coat
should hang from a rope
but it’s more like a prison cell
than an ending. it’s more like i have
to exist here, rather than wanting to.
i don’t actively want anything.

well, i want my coat. it’s your coat,
really, but you left it in my apartment
for two weeks and i think that makes it mine.
like how i stayed in your bed for three days
without eating or moving or showering
and you told me that it put me in your debt,
that i had to do something spectacular
like jump off a building or get clean
in order to belong to myself again.

perhaps if i wear enough coats, i’ll cover
the flesh that you exposed. maybe it’s easier
to say that you did this to me, that everything i
did was just a response. a backlash. a quick whip
into another lifetime to see if you were right,
i'm *****, i need to sit in the shower
until the water runs rose-clear.

remember when we sat on your sofa
eating popcorn? skirting between jobs;
you worked for that skeevy *** line
and i tried to sell my art. nobody wanted
your body or my sadness, so we took
them in and adopted them and gave them
to each other. i have all the fleshy parts
of your skin, and you have the burden
of knowing that you knew me.