May 22, 2020
The Demons We Carry Are Comfortable Inside Us
A poem about falling apart
I cannot make you stay, so this is me pinning
the word ‘longing’ clumsily to my chest —
Telling you it is best you leave.
Love dims to dark nights.
You, hidden,
Clutching the tired animal of your heart,
Watching me come home
With someone else’s jacket.
Pain is a thorn growing between us,
Piercing
Blue skies. Me sleeping
Beside you, utterly alone.
Anger tastes like rust, or
An unfinished apology — rotting
Away inside.
Smoking red hues smell a lot like jealousy.
Smells like sunset bleeding into
Night.
Or the sound of silent
Screams into pillows,
Wet eyes
Tracing the outline
Of a body under the sheet.
We are collectors of all
These things,
Trembling hands wrapped
Around heaving torsos,
Heavy nights vanishing
Into the dawn
Like vapors.
Our love is a film
Watch it burn across the screen;
In a room with high windows,
The moon causing a flood.
The days spent together in a home
That no longer
Loved us,
Suddenly fading into
Blanks spots in time
And you are sobbing,
The air forcing itself out of you,
And I cannot tell you
That this is how things fall apart,
This is how hearts break;
Not with loud cracks
But with soft whimpers in the
Night and hands failing
To remember the
Texture of skin.
Thanks so much for reading! Here are some more poems I wrote.
