If you separate
                                  yourself


From


            yourself,

You become an anomaly.

Sitting on the couch with a beer,

Thinking about how much worse
My life would be if I
Had Chlamydia.

Bug bites.
Goose bumps.

"I'm totally down to chill if you are"

This body has been cultivated
For centuries,
Sculpted
With strength in mind.

Watch it all tremble
And melt in your arms
As you cradle me
And tell me lies

I'm reducing myself
And others around me
To physical commodities

No face is like yours,
None familiar
Or warm

It's interesting to read your older poems because
You see the shifts in voice and tone and think,

*I was in this pain before,
perhaps worse,
and I survived

"The day I directed
That play in Spanish,
My stomach began to tighten."

Today I came

And did not scream your name

Nor give it the breath of whispers

We're crammed on a couch and we're spinning

I tell you, you kiss like a poet

Don't you dare blame any of this
On my star sign,
Or yours,
You are just as culpable

For breaking,
Tormenting
And leaving

I have to learn to **** myself
Without imagining your hands,
Your palms,
Gliding through my body.

I have to learn how to ******
Without gasping your name,
Gripping your hair.

I have to learn to remember
That your fingertips
Are not the only ones
To ever plunge inside me,

And to remember
That your absence should not be missed.