cough on coffee leftovers

absent abscent

when i came first
i thought you looked at me when i wasn't looking
at you.

now i'm just what's left at the bottom of this cup.

now i'm just what's left.

now i'm nothing.

now all i want is an ounce of affection, what
you could spear in between breaths, a moment so brief, you could shift your position and no one would notice.

i love you with the might of snow storms in the old country, love you

with the way i melt under the summer sun love

you enough to say it

out loud.

enough to hurt.

to be here now, wishing

you were here too like a

stupid note you find in your "love is" gum wrapper.

like the gum wrapper, discard me, crumple me and throw me out without chewing,
i'd like that a lot, i think,

because then i could fool myself into thinking it's you who's got me up at sunrise struggling to breath and not

life, at its finest, prettiest, most earnest.

as my own personal pompei goes up in flames i sit

and i write about you.

i wonder if your tongue taste like wine, you are
divine with your voice smooth as your smile and soft as

the velvet on my pink heels that i wore the night my mother
said i was trying too hard.

i always try too hard, like i am a kite and you hold the string and the wind
plays in your favour.

the world plays in your favour too.

i never try hard enough, always look away too soon, sound too cold, i was not taught

to be affectionate.

i was told it was not
aristocratic.

and you, with your wine and your cigarette look
like a dream with everything i
desire.

i think i could make you higher
than she.

i think she's a real pretty real girl, but i

am what troy would fall for again and again every night building itself anew.

and i think about you
and your pianist fingers and the way your voice lingers

somewhere in my chest long after you leave.

and how sweet would be the pain of getting my heart broken with your fragility.