darling, why didn't you just sleep on the couch all night? that lovely wooden thing with monsters carved into the legs, always awash with dust & hair & the last set of tears i cried over a movie. that masterpiece of discomfort that i sat on years ago, playing folk songs on my guitar. i knew it then & i still do; it would have held you forever. as though you were a dying soulmate, as though goodbye wasn't as final as we believed.

it's the only thing that hasn't changed these seventeen years.

put the past
where it belongs.
recalling the things
we never do.

it's been so long since i last understood you. i wonder what's changed between you & i? maybe it's that we're a little older, a little less sure of ourselves. but never wiser, never that. i'm as foolish now as i ever could be. i just can't have you in my head these days. you're really not worth the time, which is sad. i'm beginning to think i never had the desire to really capture you again. you measured your worth in silver & gold. i measured mine in secrets. maybe we should have taken time for words that weren't rehearsed.

as if the fragility of
every word would unveil
when i concentrate.

how did we get here? with the light across your shoulders & my bones breaking silently? you retreated from all those vicious whispers. your mouth barely moves when you cry. your hand doesn't falter from shading your eyes. it was all so weak, so angry, so very childish. but why did i believe you?

those unrequited
affections of yours,
must make you turn
while you slumber.

sitting under these ceilings coloured white or grey i think of your staring eyes & all that faith you have in only you. couldn't make you see, couldn't make you remember. & you don't change. cardboard caresses the tabletops in cities like this, where the men go waltzing in barefeet & breezes. & you fill the daylight with the myth of midnight. & you fill the oceans with all the tears of rumoured lust. our tears together were the cause of the pacific.

wanting to forsake you for
every lie disguised
as conversation.

it just wasn't enough
to know that i
was wasting
all your time.

indulge me for another moment,
pretend that i matter to you.