She finds that even backyard leaves contain
a blazing history inside their veins.
She reads the legends etched in crinkled skin,
her ardent, housebound blood boiling within.

At dusk, she likes to listen to the creek–
its reverent, animated tales of meek
young girls who grew into grand bronze statues–
and long for metal legs that’d let her choose

to dare, and burn, instead of fear, and waste.
But still, at night, her body likes to chase
the hours stargazing at ceilings. And
the myth-less, coarse white stucco slowly sands

away each spot of sprouting luster on
her atrophying frame. With nerve all gone
and adult blood inert as viscous tar,
she cannot even dream of ceiling stars.

you are slouched against the back of a sofa with your
eyes half-closed, computer on your lap and
legs on the coffee table.

the sunlight from the large windows beside you
kisses just the corner of your forehead–
your neck and torso melt
into the chocolate-colored shadows.

it looks like the kind of morning you want to wake up to.
the kind that whispers in pretty lavender just when you think
there's never going to be another sunrise,
and makes you smush your puffy, tired eyes into a gentle smile.
the kind that puts you in the mood for blueberry pancakes
and piping black coffee, and a peaceful, quiet day at home.

you look peaceful
as the morning sunlight peeks into an apartment
that must be yours now.
it looks like a home.

it looks like a home, and not like the dingy shoeboxes
we lived in before, where you had covered the high hats
with pink sticky notes, complaining about the unnatural light,
and we stepped onto your rickety chair to climb onto your bed, and
ate Korean snacks with the ***** clothes on your floor for company
and comfort.

it looks like a home, complete with decorative pillows
and a lampshade, with tan couches and a coffee table, and
gorgeous natural light kissing the hair
you dyed a different color.

it looks like a home, with a pair of knees next to you
that must belong to someone who cares about you
enough to take a picture of you
on the kind of morning you want to wake up to,
as I still rot in the chocolate-colored shadows.

our most intimate moment in my imagination
is painting poetry onto your moonlight-drenched chest,
hot and writhing underneath me,
mirroring each stroke by tensing the muscles in your abdomen–
your vessel of a body,
becoming frayed and singed at the seams as you
burst.

I never cared much for my words.
when I write them onto my own starved skin,
I find, disappointed, that the greyed valleys are always
a poor substitute for the scorchmarks your fingers
track behind them when we
touch.

but I imagine that
covering your skin in my ink would create a
constructive interference, that
engraving into you my
scarlet-tinged idolatry would cause

our cores like stars inside of us to magnetize –
solar flares erupting, surging through every ****** crevice –
to collide in a kaleidoscopic supernova,
tearing flesh to confetti
in a glorious funeral that reeks of
destiny.

I judge my boyfriends
by how quickly I would leave them
for you.

I like to think that
to leave this one would take
a couple of days

but, more likely, it would take
one blurry grey-pink sunrise and a pint of Haagen Dazs––
an extra $1.99 for pralines & cream if you wanted
to see my cheeks dry before noon.

I know what a real smile looks like,
especially yours,
with all that glitter in your crow's feet
and crescent-shaped dimples.

I can tell you're happy now
(through a screen)

but I think I prefer to stay on my knees,
holding this memorial
for who I was when I knew you,
instead of taking the happiness
that comes with
forgetting.