Goldfish & rust

They keep telling me that love isn’t supposed to hurt

But I keep playing the movie of your death in my head.

Dress rehearsal 24/7, 365, in my best dress,

Hoping my makeup won’t smudge.

Crescent moons littering my palms,

And my sweat smells like Goldfish and rust.

There’s a wild vine that sprouts from my belly button

Tying me to you. How could it be severed? Who would do such a thing?

The text they wrote on the pyramids said my eyes were supposed to meet yours.

They spelled it out in plain English-

It would swallow me whole if I ever lost you.

I would lose my very last breath and freeze into some cold, dead thing.

I try to play tough, but you’ve seen me cry

Watched my masks shift and bend like shadows on a picket fence.

There was a worm writhing on the road, and your memory ravaged my head.

I remembered what it feels like to need and to be needed

A burden and a blessing wrapped in a basket on my porch.

I placed him safely on some damp and holy patch of ground,

Hoping that mercy will snow into your hair,

Sticking to you like a spiderweb.