he does everything halfway.

he laughs halfway:
chuckles travel halfway into my ear before he
clamps down a hand,
covering his charming calamity,
interrupting his intricate melody
-- half my mind melts into quicksand.
( it consumes and engulfs                     
the halfway bits of you i see;             
i can't have you, but even little bits
are good enough for me. )

he touches halfway:
reaches in for a hug but halts his motion,
as if i could burn him with half a breath.
he always settles for a hand on my shoulder,
or a bump at my side,
or a hesitant high five.

he touches halfway, but somehow
with just a tentative touch,
holes shaped like his eyes
are hammered into my heart.
his footsteps stain
every crevice of my brain
-- i can no longer clean myself of him.

he lies halfway:
he used to.
told me he loved me but
forgot to act like it.
smiled at me like i hung the moon
-- like i could scramble across skies,
searching for the brightest stars,
just to ****** them up and
serve them to him on a silver platter.
( i could, would.                            
but half my silver isn't enough
for your platinum-plated
plastic pulse. )
he sweetly smiled at me,
its own sugar-like song serenading me
-- but he simply did the same
to anyone who bowed in his reign.

he lies halfway and it is enough,
for his lies to wrap their way,
halfway around my gut,
and trap my lungs just enough
that i grow used to a tight chest
and holding half my breath.

he does everything halfway.

but when he loves?
he doesn't love halfway,
he loves no way.
-- maybe for someone else.
( but not for me; not for half of me.
am i not worthy                        
of more than half of you? )

he loves no way:
not in the way he says he "cares"
nor in the way he shares
only filtered fragments of himself.
the halfway bits of him i see
do not combine to form a full body.
scatter and speck and silvers
of someone i thought i knew.

he loves no way,
( and i am half a fool always,
to settle so surreptitiously )
for half of any.