waste yrself

the sweet version of your name

coating the back of my tongue

convincing my mouth

that this was nourishment

that this was love

but my body is a historian

it remembers the poison

even when my mind forgets the taste

so every time i try to digest the lie

every time i try to keep you down

my throat closes

my muscles spasm

a violent rejection of the fiction

i want to be full of forgiveness

but i am only full of the truth

and the truth is an emetic

that refuses

to say i love you

but i am terrified of decay

so i stitch the seam

along your ribcage

pulling the thread tight enough

to hide the opening

where the breath used to get out

i wanted you constant

i wanted the exact angle of your smile

caught in amber

so i replaced the messy wet heat

of your heart

with dry wool

and bent your wires

into a shape that looks

familiar

without the risk of movement

glass eyes capture your light

better than the real ones ever did

they do not blink

they do not look away

they do not cry

and i tell myself this is mercy

i tell myself this is how i save you

from the indignity of time

from the bruising and the aging

and the fading away

in this museum of us

It smells of chemicals

and the silence is heavy

i have curated a perfect statue

of the thing i used to know

forgetting that the beauty

was in the breaking

that the warmth

was in the rot

i kept the skin

but lost the soul

and now i stand here

dusting my trophy

waiting for a pulse

that i personally

there, looking out from your window yearning to be witnessed

i feel the tremble in your voice like a memory of a void that is shared by no one but us