a breeze licks my limbs like warm water, i am boundless and endless, all roads begin from my sternum and find no home. my heart beats at the irregular intervals of your breath, haggard and tentative. i wipe sweat off your brow that clings to me like spit from a parched mouth. who would have thought i would still be here, raining whispers of shattered glass across your lips.

gristle stuck between my tooth and gum, a digging that brings about all sorts of damage to rattlesnakes on the mend. you were the dream i could not let go off, a haunting of whispers and tears and seared flesh that tasted bitter at first followed by a sweet aftertaste. i drank wine for water, a thirst i could never quench but only be thwarted by suspicions and the lack of glamor. we had two stories to tell, and neither had a plot worth mentioning, only the sites of graves too muddy to fill and i was entrenched. there are no real words for this, only imaginary ones for winged beasts and furry men without hearts, but it was very real your nails raked over my cheeks gouging my eyes for pearls and my mouth for forgiveness. i had promised you would never be forsaken, but here we were straddling camels on opposite sides of a desert rife with chasms, sun burnt and lacking.

he says, you’re a contradiction in terms, you’re happy and sad, passionate and sterile, terminally ill yet fitfully alive
i said, this is where madness makes its home

he says, shut it down
he says, shut it down
he says, shut. it. down.
he says, push down & stop feeling that

i said, there is no end like the present

i said, i made nothing of it.
he says, you make and make spindles of threads that we all choke on through our navels until we’re hung like christmas ornaments over fireplaces grown cold and blasted with soot.
i said, you’re making nothing out of this.
he says, you’ve made a mess of things, you’ve made a mess in your shorts, you’ve soiled our mouths, you’ve rubbed it in, you’ve rubbed our faces in it, you’re so full of shit.

an end then, she said, an end to sadness, an end to hope. i had been dreaming, she sat against the headboard, arms wrapped around knees pulled up underneath her chin. there were tears in her eyes, thin rivers of blotched mascara down her cheeks, i was turning. her voice was hoarse as if she was shouting, a cigarette dangled from loose fingers, traces of ashes peppered the sheets. no longer dreaming i stared at the ceiling, measured it’s length and width, judging the weight of it. and i found myself lacking, my body bruised from the night before, perhaps we had been fighting, my knuckles swollen from punching walls. she inhaled the cigarette deeply, furious glow and a slight tremble in her hand. i watched and felt the hot furnace of it fill my lungs, felt it shorten my breath as she exhaled. catching myself i whispered, i never thought i would die this way, but she was gone.