Nights like this
Are the nights that will **** me.
Nights when translucent ghosts
Drape their long arms
Around my waist and take me
Waltzing across you bedroom ceiling;
Nights when sad songs pour
Out of the cracked walls
And fill my heart
With their bittersweet nostalgia;
Nights when my body freezes
In its despairing loneliness,
Cold stone wrapped in stiff sheets
And sopping pillows.
Nights like this,
I lie awake, aware of
The tangible emptiness,
The stale smell of grief.
Nights like this,
I **** myself the way I killed you,
I break the way you did:
Delicately, like the slivered backs
Of infant birds
Left the nest too soon;
Like thunder collapsing,
Shaking cupboards and windows
In time with our trembling shoulders.
You told me, you told me
"I can't just forget this like you can."
But I don't forget.
Like a soldier cut open
By the knife she obliged herself,
I bleed.
I hold my insides
Inside, cram you back
Deep into my chest,
Wrap memories around my spine
A spiral staircase of sorrow and
Sweet intentions, where no one will see
The trail of blood
Save for me.
I,
I do not escape this.
I cannot cast aside
Ashen remains, box up burning coals.
I can only carry them with me,
A red thread around my finger
Burning your name in my skin.
I carry my sorrow like a crow on my shoulder;
It pecks on my neck sharp reminders
And gorges on my acute isolation.
You say I forget,
But nights like this,
I remember everything
And regret nothing,
Even on nights like this
When all of me screams
But nothing hurts.