I sighed.
I only wanted to sit down and resign myself to never thinking twice about you again,
You've buried yourself in my rib cage, rooted yourself in the compacted red clay surrounding my bicuspid valve.
(People like you  always need a challenge, digging around with blemished, infectious hands)

You brought back weathered leather filled with emotions ancient playwrights would be horrified by
Especially alone, in the dark
Making trip after trip, til there were trenches through my soft tissue, (preparing  for a stand off; prepping for a war)

Do you know what you're capable of?
How the only moments of silence I have are standing in the hot steam of a barely resolved shower, patting my face dry while exhaling the parts of me that crave your tongue?

How thoughts of you are treacherous mountain hikes into a no man's land?

How your name on my lips is a torrential downpour of what ifs.

Cigarette stoops used to be my safe haven,
now they are shoddy trips through chicken-wire memories,
that claw through my skin and seep gray flesh through exposed punctures.
(In the mirror, my scars talk to one another, gossiping about your bad boy image)

People ask "who is this"- "I need to know what this is about"
but I have no room for apologies about the things that I will never know
I never knew you.

**Only the mysterious road maps you left on my body while heading South for the winter.