Poetry & Prose

Untitled

I find your hair in my bed while changing the sheets and I cry.

It is so cold in the morning I shiver awake under my three blankets

soak myself back to stillness in the tub and think of the rise and fall of your chest lit by the beams filtering in through your eyelashes and the curve of your nose and you are wrapped around me on a Friday morning warm and hard and real.

It echoes in my cave.

 

You slept and I hovered,

nervous and smiling,

from the corner of the bed

to the floor. Hummingbird flitting

restless fingertips

making space where there was already so much, so full of you.

You turned and I slid into the slot left behind

thinning myself to line the perimeter of the mattress,

keep myself up and you in.

 

You deserve all the space in the world.

 

I barely slept, woke up with the sun, both of us bright and shining.

And you wanted me.

You wanted me!

 

For once in my life I do all of it right.

We share space and time and I am happy

I question it constantly

But everything lines up and falls into place.

The knots in my belly unfurl,

cede their territory to the butterflies.

And then.

 

I lose my peace.

Evil.

Builds in me like bile and burns, hisses, bubbles..

Worthless.

stretches, empties out…

Loveless.

hollow and cold…

Monstrous.

 

It melts under my hands.

 

 

I never knew where to put my hands,

When to put my hands.
I stumbled through, over you.

Mouth glued shut jaw clamped.

Lips split,

Both ways…

I went away.

I am back without you

different for having once been with

Back

the same

Back

friend

Back

Alone

 

Would I

Could I

Take it back

Let me take it back

Can we take it

Back

(No.)

(I know.)

 

 

I create borders,

extend miles between what I have decided

are our cold-warring nation-states.

My map may not be accurate,

but it is the one that I have.

It is all that I have.

 

Time is running out.

 

There is no before anymore.

There never will be again.

 

Where will we be when we come

(will) we come

(will) you come

Back…

 

 

*an emotional expression of personal regret felt by a person after they have committed an act which they deem to be shameful, hurtful, or violent; closely allied to guilt and self-directed resentment

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *