The First Easy Breath- 2019 Poems

Paranoid//Consumption

I wonder if you kissed her goodbye

You've been talking for an awfully long time

I can hear the stories and the laughter from every open hallway door

and I can imagine your eyes are infatuated with her

far more than they ever were with me

coming to terms with our time spent being kind charity

if I died tonight I would not have left a dent enough for you to grieve

and I will carry all these unspoken things with me under dirt, wrestling with my lack of meaning and how I did my best to be intriguing

but finding all I was and all I am

is space on your bed

I wish that would sink through to more than the surface level of my head

but these wet hands will grip the netted belief that we want the same things and every alternate could be

till only bone remains

all I desire is to taste your decay

But then you walk back in the room and I can convince myself in a moment none of that is true

simply because of the strength of my adoration for you

It could completely undo

any type of doubt

or even the things that are true

because my whole world completely stops when I, at last, come into your view

it means nothing

yet

still

I love you