I make pot after pot of lukewarm coffee staring into the bottom of chipped paint mugs like the right words are hiding under blackened pursed lips swimming in caffeine submerged but waiting for me.
Smoke in chimneys and stale breathing, when packages are wrapped in midnight and tied with beautiful and it's easier to unwrap than it should be easier than stories layered with truth and fingertips or flowers with cut stems.
When your feet cry because guilt wears you like a back pack and using interjections and loud breathing to cover up its screaming it wants only fragrance and familiar hands.
But I need more, vying for whispers that taste sweeter than mouthfuls of our relationship.
Inventing rhyme schemes on the back of newspapers you salvage from dumps just so you can recycle them.
Quirks shaped like dead end road signs.
And happiness stays an artifice, adulterating our time with its promises.
My skin is peeling as the flaps of disappointing envelopes reveal storage units for tissues that only know what they're supposed to, and soak in the roots of rejection before their namesake can get a hold on it. Letters that don't understand their importance; it's nothing save my world
You read and read to discover the typos and shattered crystal ball smiles hidden behind giggles and "thanks but no thank yous"
Clean me up, draw the curtains, light a candle but don't stop reading
Instead I'll crumple up throw away let soggy despair grow mold until my veins run my blood mud green.
And he made eyes at me promised that secrets don't always come with price tags and that accepting is something for people other than me.
Acceptance prickling my frozen feet.
He makes me crave the rejection you had spent so long cleaning up.
The grinds spelling his name the chipped mug his face.
Apologies feel like maple syrup on my teeth leaving their taste in my mouth I won't forget this duplicity of mine, feel covered in price tags now.
Soaked in blood.
