I'd have to be dead
to let you back in my bed
Your voice is the last thing
I need stuck in my head

You entice me.
With your lips
you
      e
          n
             t
                i
                  c
                     e
                           me.

               With your legs you
                  
                      e
                   c
                 i
               t
             n
         e
.me

With everything
you
       have
you make me lust.
With everything
you
       got
you make me yearn.

Y
e
  a
   r
    n
for something I cannot have.
L
u
  s
   t
for something I have not got.

I feel the caress of my own fingers
on my own neck as I place my collar
and think pityingly
of the kind women I have known.

We found it funny
that our shoes and shirts matched.

We heard people ask if we had planned it
and we told them we had not.

You also matched me shot for shot, until we lost the ability to count
and we decided it would be best to stop drinking.

In your bedroom I matched you kiss for kiss,
until our lips could not satisfy us anymore.

Breathe for breathe,
****** for ******,
moan for moan,
we matched and we matched and we matched
and nobody asked us if we had planned that.
If they did, we would have told them that we did not.

And now,
when people look at our lips
and necks
they will not need to know if we planned it,
because the matching of our hearts was planned
and perfected, and practiced.
Not by us,
yet we enjoy the rewards.

I remember that fall,
I was seven years old,
you were 6 feet tall
and I hugged your legs.
The leaves were changed
but we stayed the same,
you may have aged
but we were both young at heart.

I remember that fall,
I was twelve years old,
you were still so tall,
and now I hugged your waist.
We sat by the fire, like every other year,
you told me a scary story,
the first and last I'd ever hear
in your deep, soothing voice.

I remember that fall,
I was fourteen years old.
You were just as tall,
but so, so thin.
There was not a hair on your head,
instead a tumor resting in there.
You smiled but you wished you were dead,
and you couldn't enjoy the season with me.

I remember that fall,
I was sixteen years old.
You're not here at all,
and I am not okay.
It's nearly two years,
everyone else enjoys their days;
but I still shed the most tears.
Fall is no longer a place for laughter;
only horrific memories.

It's summer now,
I'm eighteen years old
and nothing's how it was at all.
You'd be so proud of me.
I've made new friends,
I'm working now and I'm happy.
She is too, I know you're wondering.
I still miss you every day,
but at least time has taught me
how to continue on this way.

You said, "I'm going to college—I'm not dying",
but you might as well have.
Now you exist to me as the dead do—
As a ghost;
an old photograph;
a sigh.

You haunt me
in old Chet Baker songs;
at four in the morning
when I wonder if you still suffer from insomnia;
when I walk down Broad with sweaty palms;
or even that nickname—I always hated that name—
but I liked the way it sounded when you said it.

And you're alive—
picking your fingernails; breathing—
when I can't stand the lights
and I shut the door to let
darkness settle in my skin; into my pores; in my head.
It's then when I realize:
I've never felt more human—
and my heart has never been so raw.