Tampa, Florida

for me, it’s splendid enough to remember
past the memories of pain and defeat and unhappiness:
when you take it away
do it slowly and easily
make it as if I were dying in my sleep instead of in
my life, amen.

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Thursday, November 3rd. We were lying in bed after I showed you how to touch your toes and you said, Someday I’ll be a spider like you. You said, I’ll never find the luster, will I? You began to cry.

You told me you’d been sleeping with many women for many months.

I calmly smiled and said, Let’s go have a smoke. You said, I hate myself.

I breathed you in, felt the toxins.

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rely, rely, rely, rely

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The first night I met your mother we crucified cockroaches in her kitchen. That next autumn in our apartment on the water, you and I wiped the countertops before bed so the ants wouldn’t co-opt our coffee grounds. It was loving but perhaps not love. When I left on November 5th, I left my spice rack. I knew your food would taste bitter regardless. By the time you realized I was gone, I’d crossed into Georgia.

I could have taken an ax to your face, but I treated you kindly.

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behave, behave, behave, behave

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There are dreams where I split my own face open and let the sanguinary streams color the sea. I kneel without sand to kneel on – I no longer exist here. One day I’ll live on the water again, and my presence alone will kill you.

But for now, I sleep on my parents’ couch and quit my vices. I try not to poison too many of our memories. I think of the inebriated evening when I pedaled my bike into oncoming traffic and you followed me, unwavering. I think of sweaty palms in the amusement park line. I think of your bedroom at Monticello and if not this, then what? As if passion could overcome your self-destruction.

I taste many moments and they all taste of ash. Even the beautiful ones.

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decide, decide, decide, decide

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Christopher. If I speak it, will you appear? Can I hold the parts of you I hate? Did I ever hold you at all?

I’ll end it here, taking solace in innocence. Perhaps now you understand cruelty. Perhaps now I will lie in a bed of my own choosing.

May we both die in our sleep.

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repave, repave, repave, repave