why giving a fuck in love matters, aka i’m still your boo

the breaking of things: in parts

part i
the bouquet stain rests on the ceiling
still we never look up
why should we when the past is a liar
the petals stain your eye, redder than ever
a heart swallows stems and thorns         hungry like that
or sad enough to

part ii
a long, long time ago
for us, could be months, even seconds
our time moves in waves, crashing, plates breaking,
rushing into glass doors, fistulas, silence
a long, long time ago
i stopped bleeding

part iii
into the night you ran, i watched you from the window, from behind a peach gauze fabric
the color of our love-making     ghost garb, the un-wedding gown
you didn’t run
but i almost missed your body as it blended with shadow, the dark tunnel into
which you fled, into which you will be reborn

part iv
a cat licks my face searching for             the last vestige
tonguing ghosts
we are almost identical             she purrs against the moon
points to a chart that says all water signs touch earth, the bay sexing in natural resolve

part v
you cradled my face in your hands for the last time
sleep laid us heavy on, between above as below
your nail peeling back just enough to be the cure
the butter curling of your face against mine

part vi
each slip of something through your fingers

part vii
each street we step on like a vein –bruised

part viii
the mind rummages boxes        rooms, vena cava, artery
you squatting over yet another suitcase
zipping, a cloud –the size of our mutual existence,
covers the entire sky
blacking

part ix
who are you but a version of me, penis-ready
ready-mades, we’ve fixed against bone to make flesh, we’ve fixed into flesh
to sift out tears             Portishead version of a song we could never become

part x
a house full of branches does not make a tree
here a root once touched foot, clung    here a boy once loved a girl
or other way around
upside-down    leaves fall, leave, fall, leave, just leave
the wood door pushes closed                the wind of a body
we once build

part xi
the corridor echoes
eleven-eleven, gloom kisses itself into a twin bed

pairings of an unpair

the sheets have thinned all the way out, the threads won’t even hold others –that’s how weak.
not for hanging out a window or around a neck, not for pretending to be a non-ghost impression.

we are angry at this junction, the crossroads and all the pebbles giving us mixed signals –stillness.
the mouth forms words quicker than the heart realizes broken, we are foils of each other, unfoiling.

how can the songbird keep the sun at bay, what of the stars that ease shoulders into dilated night.
where lines on your hands connect, there i rest, where they diverge small hexes illuminate dusky.

empty is not the absence of body, but energy, slowing peddling backwards as if alpha in retrograde.
silence is a sound, mostly morningish when i search for the rustling of your body clinging to sleep.

letters sent, cursive script pining for a courtship we never had, letters cry, romanticizing envelopes.
ideally the letters would contain as many syllables as a heartache can hold –inky fingers scratch away.