I made space for you. Here
just under my collar bone and
between the gloopy lobes of lung.
I cracked open the bony sternum door,
reached in and mucked out the place that
I’ve spent my life filling with hopes and dreams.
When I pulled them out, my
hands came away covered in the
stinking rot of goals unfulfilled; my
wrists burned as the decaying poison of
unmet expectation ate away the flesh there.
I scrubbed the walls of my new empty spot
with the essence of despair and an infusion of apathy tinged
with a hint of resentment. Chemicals so corrosive
that the nerve endings burned
off leaving a sterile, unfeeling space.
I did all that for you.

You died while I was cleaning.
You had gone out, frustrated again
about how I never made time for us to spend
with just each other.
You slammed the door and even as my
hair blew back from my
face with the force of your anger,
I resolved to make a change. I had only just
finished disposing of my toxic waste when a
soft-sorry knock replaced your slam on the door.
At first I saw the gun on his hip, right next to the flashlight
and under the shade of a doughnut-filled muffin top.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Your heart - it’s dead.’ and then
went on to explain something about a bus and a busy
city street. I couldn’t be sure exactly what he said.
My mind was distracted by the glare of the bright, burning
sunset jumping off the badge on his chest
stabbing me in the eye and
the feeling of numb negative space hanging
off the front of my spine.