For a moment, right now, pretend that forgiveness will never feel like taking a bet. That the phrase, "I love you," Is not just another form of turrets. Pretend that you've got a pocket heavy with change and you walk like a wishing well wind-chime. And you've got a nickel in there for every time you cried for something. And your chance to change is as easy as flicking your thumb. Launching a coin into a pool of water. Pretend that you've got a penny melted and molded from the iron in your blood. Pretend that that wish will come true. Pretend that I just put mine down on a bet on you. Double or nothing, because ******* kid, to me, you mean something. And I don't mean any big life success. This is deathbed memories type ****. Who was there when it mattered type ****. Pizza on the car hood when the mice are asleep in the oven and the birds have nested in the old stove burners. Finding safety in a hammock held up by the corners of a mouth. Warmth in arms when you realized how cold it was actually going to be down south. For a moment right now pretend. That you've got a friend with a body made of drawbridge and hands strong enough to close it when you need to. Eyes like a moat. A blanket quilted from your lover's muscles. For a moment right now pretend that that friend isn't me. It's you. Forget God. Forget finding forgiveness and love there. On the inside that friend is you. Making penny bets like a Philippino woman in the smoking section of a casino. Double or nothing. 50/50. Pretend now that I'll be there too. Tossing coins in a well. Wishing only the best for you.

Sometimes it was as if she sipped chlorine
from little bottle caps with yellow nails,
tilting her skeletal neck back,
balancing it on a vertebrae that popped
through the top of her pastel blouse.
Really though, she ate media on sandwich bread;
believed anything in bold with twin quotations.
She was a hint of a woman, blue eyes. Translucent,
fair, a suggestion haunted by her own demons
that she dreampt about after I stayed up, waiting
for the sleeping pills to kick
in. After the baby came she obsessed
over her thickness, was confused and destroyed
as she called it by the miracle I laid in the crib
every night. Old photographs weren’t memories,
just reminders of how she used to look.
She would scream, explode with frustration,
when the baby wouldn’t stop crying, begged
Why doesn’t she like me? But it’s hard to hold
onto a ghost, sweetie. So she swore,
and she swore that tomorrow would be better,
she would get better. But I know
that once again I’ll make her a breakfast she’ll never eat,
rock the baby back to sleep,
and loop myself around another sunrise
just to feel warm again.

I know about the necklace.
How you re-gifted a leftover reject present
from a buddy who mentioned it the day before,
and I know about Lyndsey and the book of YOUR
favorite poems you bought for ME. I know you call me baby,
but I also know that I’m not the only one.
You demanded a certain elegance
that I always thought I carried, but really
I was just a bag of apologies
for simply existing in the same space that you were.
You know the night that I got drunk on cranberry and *****,
called you twice, and cried into a box of homemade
chocolate chip cookies? That wasn't the first time
I sat at your chair in your sweatpants
waiting for you to return from wherever
you said you weren't. I know about what you've done.
But, of course, as you so eagerly expected,
you’ll come in with a sigh and sleek smile,
and I’ll unclothe myself as I talk about
every detail of my day even though I know
you never bother to listen. I’ll lay naked
in your bed as you cradle what you believe
is your biggest mistake, while I silently hope
that faked ignorance can mask the reality
of how beautiful I should be and how ugly
I never wanted to admit you were.

A lot can happen in for years.
I said, but you begged
You don’t think you’ll come back?
Not even for me?
Not even for you. Not even for you,
but you see this is just a ghost town
haunted by the very memory
of your wild existence,
calling a teenager after curfew to your street name,
a few skipped breaths in bed,
kid skin and little bellies
trapped by wide-spread fingers and an innocent
lust. *A lot can happen in four years.

Twenty two sounds a lot older when you’re eighteen
and beautiful, but really
we’re all just chasing cars, multiplying the distance,
confusing the circumstances and rebelling
against the plan. This place isn't how you left it.
I’m not the glass-eyed girl in your driveway
telling you I’d never change if you would just stay
within my reach. I know I missed a few calls.
I know you did, too.
But honestly, what more could we expect
from a dreamer and trailer boy with alcohol breath?
We’ve had our roles from the beginning.
We were unlucky crossing paths, supernovas
whose rubble fell together on the ground in a coded map
that only our hands could read.

You don’t think you’ll come back?
You said, but now
1,910 miles between,
I know that it’s you that won’t come back for me.

You didn't hit me, but you might as well have
because silently crying
on the other side of your turned back,
holding my breath so the sobs
would kamikaze themselves into my ribs
hurts almost as much.
And maybe I should have red-flagged
the skipped goodnight kisses,
or even made you apologize
for leaving me alone in the library,
waiting at an empty table with two red apples
because I figured you skipped dinner
but by the time you got there,
I was just a core.

But I stayed in it, and I let you **** me
in the way I thought meant I love you
even though you never said it,
and in the way that meant
I'd be alone, again, waiting for you
to deliver yet another polished excuse
and a look that swears volumes, punches me,
guilts me into solidly believing
that it's my fault after all, because
space is just as important as answering your calls,
because independence outweighs how attached
I'd became to your lust and ten cent compliments.

Now, I've become rust in my hometown,
afraid to ask because I know the answer
and bitter, frozen and bitter,
because honestly I should have known.
I just should have known.

We broke up a week ago, but
I still sleep in your bed every night
because there's a sink spot in the mattress,
your sheets smell like Old Spice,
and you hold my hand underneath the pillow
until our circulation gives, and the needles
***** our senses, pausing the blood flow
until we roll to our separate sides.
But when our hips collide,
hands playing my ribs like a harpsichord,
kissing your scruffy chin and collarbone line,
my dream begins to slip and I'm reminded again
how good it is to forget.

Coming to you is like coming home,
all washed-up and beautifully damaged.
So I draw the curtains and I turn on the fan
to lull us into another hand-painted, night design
where my lines intersect with yours,
the comforter overlapping us,
shadowing the fact that I shouldn't really be here,
but you dare not ask me to leave.

I can't drink a Miller without the taste
of a backyard, bonfire
raising and your name
only catching speed
in my throat before I gasp
too many, too late confessions. I can't
let the liquid rest with me,
just before I swallow,
or else I'll drown in reminiscing.
So I gulp.
I ferment my own mind and I punish
bottle after bottle even though
every breath after just reminds me
of inhaling your own
when we'd wind ourselves back up
after a drunken escapade
in your bed after everyone else
went to sleep and our dreams
had no chance of catching up to us. I can't
think of you too long
unless I balance on distance
and YOU'RE NEVER COMING BACK!
That's it. I can't
decide whether I'm happy that you've grasped
something so real and sturdy
after all the times I've played the crutch,
or if I hate you,
still, for leaving me by the fingertips,
dangling on a prayer for your safety,
basking in the light of your brilliance,
only to find myself here
in my shower
with a Miller
and an old country song on the radio.