you drove away today.

i cannot breathe.

it hurts to think, to speak.

it hurts even to blink.

what is food?

i have forgotten how to eat.

there is nothing that does not remind me of you.

four walls no longer provide comfort.

how can it be that we didn't even kiss goodbye properly?

above all things, this haunts me the most.

and the way you looked at me through your back windshield.

as if you could memorize our parting scene in that one glance.

abandoned

how can you ask me not to cry

when these tears are all i have left for you?

time has grown us twisted together in love, now

we collapse in a tangled heap.

i lose my breath for a moment longer than you do.

did i not promise to love you more?

i intended to tattoo my name in the darkest

corner of your heart like a ray of sun.

now it is my own soul that bleeds, torn

from the warmth of its long embrace with yours.

where is the cushion to soften my fall?

once, i would have called you if i felt the

wrench of every nucleus.

all you've left for me is an empty dial tone.

for mother

this love is a curse

a ship lost in unruly waters

this love is cruel as steel

we both taste of metal.

i broke no bones in this body

when our rope snapped, taut

yet the quake of bitter reason

shocked both you and i to truth.

we cannot survive as one

nor as one outside the other

this love is a charging bull

the scarlet flare of sorrow.

bending on two pairs of knees

even the sky smells of earth

this love is wretched, numbing

without it we would not feel at all.

it's raining, it's absolutely pouring

nine days have passed since we lied together on your crackly mattress.

nine days since you kissed me like the present was already past.

nine days since you told me you loved me like sunshine.

nine days since i touched your smiling face like that.

nine days since we talked about nothing at all.

nine days since your voice calmed me down.

nine days since since our fingers twined.

nine days since i sat at your table.

nine days since our last embrace.

nine days since i felt like i was

truly myself and truly a part

of something bigger than

just a tiny life full of

cracks and dim

ideas, nine

days since

we were

one.