I hear people say severely romantic
things to each other.
I see them believe it as
their eyes swell.
I notice their desperate
hooks finding a mark,
any mark.

they begin to construct
a mythos immediately upon
initial mutual affirmation.
they design
every reason why
this 'other' is the only
'other' that
makes sense, that
could ever make
sense.

they enchant themselves
and each other.
they build
an elaborate simulation
together and
promise/doom themselves
to never leave it.
they swear and curse
to feed the pantheon of
gods they created to
rule over them.

they commit themselves
to the
chains of
a shallow love.

but hey what do I know, right?

I'm just
another fool
waiting to get
what he
deserves.

i'd give anything
to have you back
but i'd give anything
to never want you
back

Look at you running
rush hour in my brain

i could love you
and you could love me
at this table for four
from 1960,

fish swimming behind us
in the old TV.

you could love me
and i could love you
the two best choices
on the menu,

record player spinning
madeleine peyroux;

hot like this coffee
sweet like this pastry
high like this street view

but we’re just passing through

i stood outside in the rain
and felt the water collide with my face wondering if i was the only one
who had felt like this or if it was
just the cold from my wet clothes
slowly creeping in

was the feeling my empty chest
which carried the echoed thumps
of my heart or was it just the chilling
of my bones from landing in one
too many puddles

i read poetry until the dawn broke the sky
and like the sun waking up
i kissed the darkness goodbye
and welcomed the blue bird’s song
greeting the warm rays of a new day

but like the day it was only temporary
and i felt the cool pull from the moon’s glow
tugging me back into my empty bed
writing poetry until the light from the morning
shown brighter than my phone screen

sadness only settles into my skin
after i am done tearing at it with guilty teeth
remembering what it felt like to sink into
that special spot at the
junction point of your shoulders

i spend countless hours biting my nails
to short stubs because i don’t want
to remember them tracing
the freckles on your back as if i
were painting constellations on your flesh

i look at photos in my phone
only deleting them when the substance in
my lungs is strong enough to subdue
the aching in my chest as i remember
the happiness and the love that we held

i make hot tea once it hits 4
with the salted tears that fall down
my cheeks because i can’t get up
without falling to my knees in a silent
prayer that you’ll come back to me

and when the sun comes back up
and awakes the restless city
i welcome it with open arms in hopes
that today will actually be a new day
and that it’ll end when it leaves

to see what mark you left on me, i look back into the corner of my mind.
dust-filled, nothing swept, it's a mess in here.

i once devoted much of my thought to you. put you in the main floor, dragged you to the bedroom.

today you're an attic of my mind
where i keep old memories, faded, dulled, no edges like the days they stem from
where i let she who was me but no longer is sleep.

i flip through her thoughts, they used to be mine/
can i call them that still?