hey

hi

can you hear me?

I think your video is off but yes

okay

task one

item three

did that just happen?

earnings call tonight

I voted during lunch, too

task five

item eleven

what happens now?

I’ll share my screen, can you read it okay?

glad we’re almost done with the project

what happens next?

I pick up
he screams, I don’t know what
he threatens, he spins thread
I plead. I say sorry, I don’t know why

“have you taken your medication?”
wrong question, wrong time

I receive a list of tasks to perform before sundown
1. remove these friends
2. admit to these things
3. give up my dreams
3. …give up me

swallowed by the waves, never to be seen
smiling when he chose me

he doesn’t take his shirt off anymore
he never really liked to, but now he never does
“I’m sagging. I have wrinkles,” he says through beautiful crows feet and a sad grimace wrapped by dimples lengthened through smiling as hard as he lived
once, he was young
messy, poor-intentioned, headstrong, mean
when his smile lines started staying
it was new

are you ashamed you became an antidote?
or that you were once poison?

You stopped touching my bones when you couldn’t see them anymore.
I healed my eating but you found a thinner, older replacement.
We don’t touch anymore, but you chalk that up to the place we live.
We moved away, and I didn’t see any changes.

So what’s next?
What is left to keep you away?
I fixed my temperament, I moved, I stayed through the hatred.

So what’s left?
What is still keeping you attached to me?
What do I have left to give when we’re not on vacation?

What’s next?
What’s left?
I can’t see it, so please tell me if my information is dated.

a stain is not an active incident
it is what we left behind
after we clean the mess

honey used to drip from your skin onto mine
a sweet thread connecting even sweeter moments
a natural connection

our warm skin run cold
a porcelain shell
moment after moment
the chaos in your brain
spilling honey

the mess is clean
now this shell is stained
i wait patiently
for us to connect

17 days, 28 days, 30 days
the gaps widen
the wall is built higher and higher
and the final sticky strand
connecting me to you
is stretched so thin

twenty moments of desire in four hundred days

I can’t see us anymore

the sun is in your eyes
the moon in mine
i have dreams in mind
but you have plans

i feel more like your celestial counterpart
the moon to your sun
always revolving, constant with each other
always in sight
but never close
never together

the sun is in your eyes
the moon in mine
i'm feeling left behind
so soon, it comes

i always saw your name
on street signs and in books
a reminder of a friendly face

i see a smoky night out in map directions
i see a row of shots sitting above a business
i see when you gave up on page 36