smaller than anything, no talk or touch
on the inside you’re growing a rose bush, a thorn in your side
i know this, because i helped grow it there.
it is dying now. you forgot to look after it, its drying up in your gut
hardly red at all
black and tarred and all *******.
i lean in and i ask it sadly  “do you need some help?”
but it does not reply, and you are sleeping though
you do not reply anyway.
your skin tells me that you are warm, alive, but by the way you’re breathing
on my shoulder, and the nicotine stains in-between your fingers loose across your cheek
tell me that you have never felt the warm at all.
and then maybe i pull you closer
to keep you from freezing over like the iceberg
bodies fit like jigsaws when they are in love but ours do not fit at all and the bits in between where my skin lacks your’s make me want to arch and die in-between the white.
and in my frail effort, in your limpness, pale, it occurs to me that
you are the white, the iceberg
half-asleep with you my eyes are closed but even when they weren’t
i couldn’t see you anyway
you are bigger than anything i’d imagined.

i haven’t felt anything in 7 weeks and 1 day and if i woke you up i think i might cry.

the cold killed the rosebush and where my palms try desperately to hug your stomach
im crying, saying
*i cannot bring the sunshine back to you
i cannot bring the sunshine back to you