I conveyed the simple scripts onto cardboard cutouts
left fragments on the floor and hoped you wouldn’t tread on them;
You never broke your shuffled stride, and the pieces fused into the fibers.
Too much tension to revive tiny worlds withstanding injuries unflinching.
Countless papercuts numbed my senses,
I counted on you to revive them.
I remember buying packs of cigarettes, hoping they would last the night
The way I hoped you would last all my life
Correct me if I’m wrong but I recall you claiming this would last forever,
I may have miscalculated, divided the aeons by the pledge imprecisely.
But I can still hear you say “I love you” and picking flowers for hours;
I let them suffocate on the dresser, buried beneath burdens we both had to carry
& the clothes we had undergrown.

I have blood between my teeth from biting my tongue all those times you walked away
I’ve got miles racked from all the circle-trips I drove to find you
You left a trail of dust every time you sped away, I couldn’t follow the tail lights.
I don’t think you wanted me to.
I don’t think you needed me to.
I know now you didn’t.
Not the way I needed you to follow me when I left.
I kept my eyes glued to the rear view mirror but never saw headlights on a frantic chase.
A few months have passed me without their blinkers on,
tell me where they went & if they found you well.

I kept pressing for something more & you kept widening the gap.
I waded through the words you spoke, the promises you broke.
I stood in the shower for hours trying to recollect the past four months we shared
…or didn’t.
I tried to map out where we’d been so I could trek back to the days we would promise each other that this wouldn’t fold.
Vacant oaths fill my lungs
& you will not attest your behalf.
I steered for weeks to find the mile marker where we went off track.
Only to find myself empty handed, empty hearted.
Minus the raz[o]r in my hands, saving sentences that sliced my arteries.
I bled for you – I bleed for you.
& only now I stop and notice the ‘danger, steep curves ahead.’

Mesmerized watching the wind carry seeds from dandelions
A desperate attempt to procreate
I watched the weeds intercept, maybe not everything can cultivate.
In a futile attempt to build a LIfE for us I got shorthanded
& I am afraid these chips and cards are bent and slightly worn.
I am realizing you have experience with this game,
the deck was marked; you dealt yourself the upperhand.
Cheated from the beginning, but [pok/her] never was my forte.
Conscience punctured and sentiments wounded,
my brave is ambitious and will venture on in this life sentence.
But I cannot hide the condensation in my eyes, threatening precipitation.



I heard the words but never quite understood what they meant.
Circumvent, it never ends.  I never got the story straight…
You were always dismissive of my emotions and now I am too cold to feel
anything but the heart-wrenching, icy tap of  fingers against a keyboard;
or
Like breathing and not wanting to.
You haven’t meant ‘I love you’ for bi-weeks,
and I’m almost as afraid of being alone as I am in knowing you won’t ever again.
Sympathies aside, was it me you wanted or just someone?


You took my heart, my body with you those bruised black months you left
Wore it down to carotids and pulmonaries, threw it back into my chest and demanded it to mend.
I can dig up more than bones and I can exhume more than you would think
& I should be done hoping you are going to be the one to fill my void.
I am finished stretching thin skin over the wounds you salted with your lies;
Always an excuse and I am not  the one to pardon your relentless coughing and sneezing.


Pulling curtains, shutters closed; boarding up for the hurricane.
Stutter step and shudder kept; I am the the most defeated I have ever been.
Undercurrents causing me to falter and I stumble into the drive but you’ve still misplaced yourself.
Despondent, I crawl into bed and lay in whitespace, keeping vigil.
Those critical milliseconds you insisted on missing.
I tried to connect the receivers, but you ignored the page.
I wanted to tell you the meter is hitting 3 o’clock and this would all be over soon.

I am trapped in these chapters of this memory book bound by scarlet heartstrings;
encased in story problems I never earned credentials to resolve.
Now you leave me with little holes.
Like voids that need to breathe.
Frequently I am convinced I am thin-skinned and transparent.

Sometimes it just feels better to give in