At dinner, you carved our initials
in the table like we were kids
who couldn’t handle paper.
And when you kissed my forehead in that bar,
it felt like the closest thing to a war.
Who else deciphers you?
Who else lets you be this cruel?
You laughed like nothing ever stays,
while the room held its breath—
thousands of ways to break,
none of them mine.
You lit a cigarette, exhaled
my name, said love is just another
bruise to frame. Played Elliott Smith
until the vinyl screamed. The room went hollow.
I stayed, half-dreamed.
I’ve memorized the script you bleed,
still call it poetry, sharp and obscene.
Each line I write pulls teeth,
but silence is a grave too deep,
and I’m not ready to be buried.
The skyline’s fading into bruised blue,
and I keep writing about you.
If I ever make it big,
I’ll tell them the truth:
I sold my soul to the ghost of you.
Your eyes were glass;
your hands, stone.
You look like someone
who dies alone.
Who else watches you rot so sweet?
Who else begs to sit at your feet?
You kissed like a guillotine—
cold and clean—
said nothing’s sacred,
not even dreams.
You pressed your hands to my ribs,
sighed like a wave that knew it would drown,
said, “I wonder what breaks first—
the cage or the tide?
Does the cage crack open,
or does the tide betray?
Which one admits they wanted it that way?”
You laughed like the question wasn’t insane,
and I felt both collapse
in the back of my brain.
The tide swallowed the cage;
the cage choked the tide,
and I stood in the wreckage
of what neither survived.
As they broke, I saw it clear:
neither could win—
only disappear.
And I keep writing you,
line after line,
a hymn to the hurt
I still call mine.
If I ever make it big,
they’ll read every verse
and know I traded my best
for your worst.
Here’s to the ruins
we called our own—
the table we carved,
the war we’ve known.
Your eyes were glass;
your hands, stone.
You look like someone
who’s already gone.