you’re a phantom of my best intentions - black and blue knuckles that i kiss before i sleep. i am a songbird and i carry your museum ticket heart delicately in my mouth. you’re my grandmother’s antique china, you were not made for rough hands. tell me again about the night that i’ve romanticized beyond recognition, i want to hear it out of your loveless mouth. mostly because i’ve begun to learn that poets ruin things.
when i think of that night, it comes to me in heat waves, splintered and mangled like our legs, weaving themselves together. i think of how i gripped you like cling wrap stretched taut over a home-cooked meal, not like the incandescent child i was. no, the way i see it i was ancient that night, because i contained so much, and i thought only greek heroines could be so filled to the brim. tell me about that night because it’s a snow globe i’ve shaken so hard it’s shattered, because it’s crystallized honey and i don’t remember how it used to taste. because i think i miss you but how could i know?
i keep trying to picture your face but i get stuck on that part where your cheek meets your jaw, because that’s the part i have loved so viciously that i only knew it by my metaphors, until i knew it was real. tell me again about the night i remember too well, too deep. i just want to hear your voice because i love you beyond yourself. in this silence i remember that i am a ruiner by birth and a fixer by circumstance, but i hope you wear my poems like charms on your wrist. that is all i could ever ask you to keep of me.
