We stayed in

We stayed in that night.

The streets were crowded and riddled with sounds, so we stayed in.

And the sheets were soft but rough on the knees.

They were gray flannel,

My toes skimmed the seams.

Comforter crumpled and scattered half-way on the floor.

And I don’t quite remember what his skin felt like,

But I knew it was scattered with snowflakes

And I tried to taste the ones that fell on his lashes

As I moved my mouth looking for a safe place.

I never found it.

He didn’t breathe, he just looked at me and through me

As I silently begged him to hold me.

But he didn’t.

Because we stayed in.

Him and I cannot be left alone because

One of us is real and the other

A mere illusion of years ago.

The pillows were soft, but only if your head was heavy--

But mine wasn’t attached at all.

His collarbones were snapping, cracking, breaking--

Every time he blinked we shook because

What else can you do when in bed with a stranger.

I ask that question often, but the only response I get is

Screams of a burning whisper lodged in the base of my spine.

I’ve thought about this for weeks now,

As I stay in every night.

And I struggle to understand why a hand made of

Butterfly wings weren’t enough to make you stay.

You said you couldn’t.

You didn’t want to.

It was winter and you had to go.

The webs that had grown between the

Spaces of your fingers caught so much disease

And you couldn’t move them anymore.

You stopped opening the window to the sun and

I can’t try and pretend that things will grow.

Because they won’t.

Any trace of the leaf that clung to the sole of your feet

Has turned brown and returned to the cracks of the cement.

I am so sorry that these words were spun so far

Out of control and I promise that my cerebral cortex

Is wishing hopelessly,

Within another galaxy,

That I can’t visit and you don’t wish to see.

So I’ll tuck in my structured semblance of dignity

And pull the sheets over your lips so I can’t see the

Source of darkness that remains sealed and shut.