Because of you, my bone marrow holds more memories than I could ever manage to roll off my tongue, and my blood will always be over saturated with ecstasy that you can’t get on the streets or at that college party you wish you went to.

I feel like I am drowning, but there is no water
I feel like I am falling, but my feet are on the ground
I feel like I am suffocating, but my lungs fill with air
I feel like I am dead, but still my heart beats on
This is what I feel like, now that you are gone

I guess I understand now
what the true meaning of home meant.
It wasn't some sort of fancy place you bunk in,
eat at neither does it provide a shelter or a roof
over your head.
Home is where you feel yourself being yourself
no matter how stupid you get
or how much of a failure you become.

tell me about the fact that you never sleep on your left side.
describe every turn, every toss, every other hour where you open your eyes again.
your hand reaches into the humid air, trying to remember the width of my throat.

and isn't that like you? to run your tongue along the taste of piled bones against a torn mattress.

not the heat, not the growls in between,
you are beautiful, i see how you burn for me.

but didn't your mother warn you not to play with fire?
kerosene is unforgiving, my fingers striking the evening in the shape of matches.

and so we scream, you slam your body into mine.
a breath into my neck, just like this, baby?

but don't forget the way my lips burned your skin.
you won't find destruction like this in any other life.

and that is the art of my absence.

so, tell me again how you don't sleep on your left side,
because that's where the fire started.