I should have looked both ways.
Instead I followed the way your ribs
concave when you breathe like an optical illusion,
your lips the remedy, hypnotizing me
until I dangled like a puppet
in your amazing little show.
I danced for you on table tops just to grab your attention,
hid my coat in the corner of the kitchen, and stole
another beer from the back of the fridge
like you stole my heart when you walked in.
I created myself, like a piece of art
with lines you could tangle yourself into,
caves where my passion hung like a stalagmite,
glittering in your oppression and hardening with your lust
just when the light hit me right. You followed
my brush strokes on the page until you got distracted,
and I should have looked both ways
before I crossed myself into you. I should have noticed
the girl behind me in the black leggings and belly
that was flatter than your ambition, or the one
with the dark hair and cherry lips,
but I shouldn’t judge. I’m a carbon copy
with a sensible heart and dreams that could fill
perfume bottles if only you would take them off the self.

In high school, I used to crawl
past my dad’s side of the bed so I could whisper,
at midnight, to my mom that I was leaving
and going to your place, and that I’d be back
by five in the morning, because I was that good girl
in the knee-high socks with the headband
that matched my uniform. So, I told my mom
that I was going over, watched her sleepy eyes
drift back to her pillow corner. I’d start my car,
put on that sappy John Mayer song you hate,
but know I love, and head through the center of town
on the ghost roads, driving like a memory
with four wheels and only three more miles to go.
You’d let me in the back door, careful not to shut the door
to the kitchen too tight, and we’d kiss
under the aquarium light.

I’d watch the shatters
of light split with the blades of your ceiling fan
as you’d remind me over and over again
with your words that I couldn’t stay long
while your hands pulled me in closer to your chest.

You were the first bad thing I let myself have.

I’d have to leave before your dad would get up for work,
so I’d pull on my sweatpants, wipe the makeup
from beneath the crease of my eyes, kiss you goodbye
for who knew how long it would be that time, and I’d cry
in the car the whole way home
because I knew that we were like grains of sand
in an hourglass
just waiting for our turn to fall.

I have to make him a turkey sandwich,
crusts cut off, mayo on the left piece of bread,
in two triangle halves every single night
before he goes to sleep on the right side of the bed
with two pillows, fluffed twice each, slippers
tucked neatly underneath the bed skirt.
And every night I wonder
what would happen if I forgot the pickle on the side,
like the one time
we ran out of cheese and my car had a flat tire
and the supermarket was so far, but boy
did he give it to me. I’ve never seen someone count
to one-hundred so fast with their finger taps
before the table flipped. Never have I seen
someone clean up glass so slowly, each piece
thrown in the trash individually
just like my pieces
that have been carved away year after year,
loaf after loaf, as my eyes droop backwards
and rest on his haircut that I give
every six weeks on a Wednesday. Sometimes,
I try to kiss his neck when I let the scissors slip,
but he always reminds me that this slot
is “haircut time” and there’s no necessity in kissing
anyway. And I’ve tried to respect
his attic closet compartments with the key
that had gone missing when he was fifteen,
and I’ve tried to wish on misshapen pieces of cereal
in my bowl because I’m that desperate for a miracle.
Do you know?
Do you know how hard it is to lie next to someone
who you know doesn’t dream of you, not because he doesn’t
want to, but because he can’t. He can’t
do so many things and sometimes I’ll lay out a green tie
on a workday instead of blue just to watch him blow up
because at least that’s a feeling. At least that’s not white walls
and another **** turkey sandwich. And I know that’s sinful,
and I also know that I fold my hands wrong when I pray,
but I’ve tried to shape him for years and all I’ve gotten
is a cast with nothing to fill the mold. And I know my suitcase
has been packed for weeks, but. . . Dear God, you know I’ll never leave.
I save my laundry for Saturdays, don’t tell him why I’m crying
myself back to sleep, and check the fridge one last time
for the right deli meat.

You are my personal taste of sorbet, sun-tan lotion, botched
slices of the sun that sit on my tongue like pills
before I swallow. I hate necessity, and crave your entity
in ice cream scoop sizes. I want to pull the batteries out of your back,
**** the juice onto my palette and spit it back into your eyes
so maybe you can feel the sting you left me with when you pushed
my heart off the side of the bed while pulling your pelvis closer to my head.
I hate when we’re cooking and you slide ice cubes down my shirt,
but did you know that’s the only time I ever felt anything
from you that wasn’t warm and bitter and bruised? I think
that sometimes your nightmares even scare me.
I can feel them when you sleep,
your arm flinching beneath my neck, how you curl
your toes against my calves and grind your teeth like you’re trying to fit
your square memories into the oval-shaped hole of my spine.
I get that that’s why you’re a little crooked, but you used me
to straighten yourself like the post a tomato plant wraps its stem around.
You took all the nutrients from my center and fed yourself.
You are the palm tree in my snow globe, but no matter
many times I shake you
the snow still falls on my shoulders.

I stopped mid-sidewalk at 11p.m. tonight
with my hat on backwards just to match my heart
and my sweatpants tucked into my boots
with green acrylic-splatter on the left toe
from when I was ****** and painting you as hard as I could
into the paper. I stopped
and attempted to fit myself into the splits
the clouds would make in the skies. I tried to make
a tiny infinity out of the two-pack Oreo wrapper
in my jacket pocket, but all I got was a crumble
that sort of looked like your face sitting in my palm
when I pull your cheek to the side and drag one last
goodnight kiss out of you. So, I threw it on the ground,
and I know that’s littering, but come on you treat me
like trash anyway. I pictured myself making one of those
sled-ride snow angels right in the middle of the grass,
and in my haphazard mind I figured it would be cinematic
and lively, but it was just ******* freezing and I was soaked
the rest of the way home. But I did it. At least I did something,
while you lie in your bed with tomorrow’s practice clothes laid out
just dissolving social media pixels in your head. And you could be calling
some other girl, how would I know?
She could be lying next to you with her yoga pants
tossed neatly on the bedpost, you ******* her while your roommate is asleep.
How would I know? The most you ever tell me
is how much beer is in the fridge or how you just won’t
have enough time to **** me quick before you gotta be somewhere
so I should just come back next week
like I’m a shopper waiting for the ripe strawberries to come in.
So I stopped in the snow and I cried a little
because I’ve let myself get so stupid over your sometimes.
And I hoped, hugely, that you would for once see me
slide into your dreams and make it into your mornings
like a gentle reminder that screams please, don’t forget about me
and hugs you like the sun,
but how would I know, anyway.

My heart’s over here
you said, lying on your back,
with my head on the hard part of your shoulder,
making circles around your chest plate
like I was trying to drill into your bones
just to find the rose nectar that swam
in your blood so I could finally taste something
that wasn’t late and sour and mustered out of pity.
You misheard me. I was just making sure
my heavy head with all these thoughts
magnetizing themselves to others weren’t causing
your arm to manifest a maze of pins and needles.
I just wanted to make sure you were okay. *My heart’s over here
you whispered as we cradled ourselves in the shadows
my comforter made when caught against
the lamppost light creeping in from my window.
But I wondered, even if I screamed it, would you be able to hear
where the knocking was coming from? You look at me
but sometimes, I swear, you think it’s just a combination
of alphabet letters that I’m not expecting you to remember.
You look at me, but here I am
cramming myself into your framework and painting myself red
so maybe I’ll stand out against all the other kaleidoscope bits
that fall around you. You look at me, but my heart’s over here.
My heart’s over here! I let it drip from my mouth when you’re asleep
so I know you won’t hear it, because even though I know
you don’t really care, I’d never ask you to leave.

It’s like you’re a pair of headphones—
coming in two different ears, and I’m bouncing
between one beat and the words that fall from my mouth
like ransom. I swear to god, if you’d just let me fall into you
the wreckage would be small, you’d just have to cradle me
like you do all the other bits that land in your lap
during the so called “suffocation” of your busy schedule.
I get that I’m too big to fit onto a calendar.
I get that sometimes I wear green just because it’s your favorite color.
But picture us together, and not with my clothes in a puddle
on the tile floor while the shower runs. Not with your hand
playing itsy-bitsy spider on my legs as you let your tongue
linger on the dips in my neck. Picture us on the sidewalk
with a lucky penny between our shoes, and how beautiful
our reflections would look even in that tiny surface area. Then,
imagine me in the stands with your over-sized t-shirt
and you could pick me out among the crowd. How about
our hands? Just picture them tangling together, your thick knuckles
knocking against my mother’s old ring. Or even take those circles you draw
on my hipbones and practice them on my palms.
I promise you it’s a lot prettier.
I promise you I know the route, I’ve been around that elliptical
that is your I’m sorry laced with every interpretation that is
YOU JUST DON’T FIT. I know I don’t fit,
and that you think we’re just too misshapen, but do you ever remember,
in that tipsy mind of yours, how slender my body fits into yours
like we’re two half-moons just making a sliver? I just wish you thought of me,
if at all, a little bigger.