I love to watch cream dissolve into coffee
Like milky white ribbons unfurling something beautiful
Three days before you broke up with me
I felt your body dissolve into mine
Looking down at you as we made love
I felt my insides unfurl
Except it wasn’t white ribbons
But salty tears that exploded from my eyes
You touched my body
Your withered hands like the underside of rose petals
They felt so good on my skin
I wanted to swallow you whole until my belly hurt
You were a food I didn’t know I liked
Until I bit in deeper and tasted all the layers
That made you who you are
An intersection of bitter and sweetness
That left me hungry for more
Sometimes it hurts to breathe
See, you’re still inside me like the prickly exterior of a peach pit
I wanted just the fruit but was left with the hardness
It burns sometimes when I look back
And try to put pieces together
The most abstract puzzle that will remain imcomplete
If we were words we’d be antonyms
But our hands created symphonies
Our mouths and our bodies and the way that we came together
Was the most beautiful synchronicity
Even if our music was dissonant
And I miss you
And I am mad at myself for giving my heart to someone
Who cannot feel his own beating inside of him
But see, I felt your rhythm
When I laid my head on your chest
Your body heat like one of those electric blankets
My father used to lay on us when we were kids
It warmed me in the best way
I varied your temperature and your temperament
And even if you refuse to acknowledge it
I know that your insides began to soften when enveloped in mine
Like the way butter melts on a hot frying pan
Because that is chemistry
If you don’t want to call it love
At least admit that it was science
You cannot burn something without fire and
My god, we were embers
Sometimes
When sweetening my coffee
I leave out the sugar because I want to
Taste the acid that still sits in my stomach at the thought of you not in my life
Did I mention that I love you?
If I had a cassette tape
I’d play those 3 words over and over for you to listen to
As you fall asleep at night
Your parents never told you enough
And I am mad at them too for hardening your skin
It’s exterior like a callous grown so thick over time
That it would take miracles to find the smoothness beneath it
When I began to soften you
You, too, dissolved
Like the cream in my coffee
Pretty soon it turns one color
And you would have never known it was there at all…
