I have tried to love you,
while you loved
another.

I’ve tried making
peace, with the fact
that I will always,
always fall second
in your heart.

We are not a cliche.
We are a vicious cycle.

We fall in a dance,
that we never speak of.

I wait for you at night.
You stumble in my arms,
drunk and desperate.

We sleep through
hurried whispers in
the darkness,
fleeting fingertips
shaking terribly over
white-hot heat of skin
touching against skin, slow-dancing
with silence in lieu of music,
the sharp angles of your
hipbones and the dip
where your collarbone
meets your sternum

– all these and more,
on my lips and the way
you tear through my flesh

– only to run out
my bed when the morning
comes, to run in his arms

And he’ll meet you at the door
smelling of fresh showers
and mint toothpaste,
and summery aftershave.

He’ll ask you where you’ve been
and you’ll conjure a lie or two
about how you’ve spent the night
and the day before with your sister
or how you’ve spent the night
on your friend’s couch…

…but I am not your friend,
and you certainly didn’t spend
the night on my couch.

And in the afternoon,
I’ll see you with him, his hands
on the small of your back,
exactly just as where my
hands had been, just hours ago.

The sun sets, the night falls
and I’ll wait for you
to run to me again.

And you always do.

We’re not a cliche
We’re poison meant to ****
each other, and we’re not
supposed to mesh at all.
We’re an incurable sickness
that we both know we cannot
live without.

We’re lies and lies and lies.
Topped off with lies again and again.

We are not
empty wineglasses
left on the floor
to pick up dust or
to shatter to pieces, but we are
more of an unfinished novel
dog-eared and thrown
a thousand times across the floor
both in frustration and in anger.

We both keep
picking it up and re-reading
over and over again
even though we already know
how
   this
      story
           ends.

And **** if it isn’t my favorite.