i woke up to stars fluttering around my head
and a strange operator of crude remarks,
protruding my thoughts as if they weren’t
real enough to see-
i feel dimmed. i hope you don’t.
yesterday when i saw your mother in
the grocery store, it tripped me up
my mind distracted from my sample cup of black coffee,
i lost all focus, i threw it out
i found myself 30 minutes later in the restroom
talking to the mirror
i hope you don’t, ever, yearn to be alone
every passing unconscious fragment
clouded away
i hope you still know how to sleep
without me, haunting your dreams from
time to time. don’t awake in a cold sweat
of memories glued to the back of your mind
you thought you amputated the things people
couldn’t see, the things you didn’t need.
i told myself once
i would read the dictionary
yet i never found the word that accurately
depicted the way it felt when i left you,
no, not even regret,
i threw it out.
my definitions are blurred, i can’t decipher
between heart and
head and
whether or not your name still tastes like home
in my mouth or
if it stings like the oil I drop under my tongue
to love myself and
i’m learning to walk, broken.
all bones cracked.
i left.
i told everyone i didn’t need crutches
and i didn’t need you either, i threw you out.
the irony was in the innocent way
they believed me,
i am bleeding,
i can’t walk unsteadily. a part of me missing
too sunken to scream your name any longer
a bit too bruised to pretend i’ll
ever be the same

i wasn’t made to be condensed into your adjectives,
as if “dream girl” and “broken” equated.
on what planet do the stars create grey eyes and
a name with a story, i'm
the skipping record of leaving
too quickly, abandoning my home while
the first is still in flames

sometimes
being outdoors just hurts
more than the dull ache of a morning with no aspirin
and more than the reflection of the shattered glass under my feet
sometimes
I evolve to cope
(but not often)
from neon paint reminiscent of a traffic stop, streaked across bark
to *** and la croix in trembling hands
sometimes
I wonder how your musician is doing
do you love him like you love frayed brushes and marilyn monroe?
sometimes
I say this is the root of it all.
perhaps my therapist would differ.

She’s brewing like rich wine
the older she gets
her each added faceline
my eyes satiates.

She’s huing like violets
purpling is her soul
tho older she gets
she's never too ole.

She’s frothing like nectar
honeying in core
feels endless this affair

I’m loving her more.