I still don’t know

Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of all life.
— Jewish proverb


vowing that it would be the last time
is what kept me coming back
all that time
taking myself to the edge
of what i can bear
is what i was born to do

i didn't want to say it
but you rearranged me completely
i had only been posing
for a photograph
when i met you

a list of ingredients
without a recipe
the single grape
inside your boneless mouth

it wasn't much, but it wasn't nothing
i have stood barefoot in your bedroom
i have been alone inside of you
like a key that slides in the lock
but can't quite make it turn

it must be the tenor of your voice

it felt wild and rare
                        incendiary, even
but in the end
love is not a melodrama

in the end, all i could calibrate
was the undressed space between us 
                your most reticent deficits
                the messy shelves inside of you
     towers of unread novels
     rising up from the floor

a small song loops all night in the dark

your shallow pool of verisimilitude
could not sink
your monuments of impassivity
though they made for such
delicious resistances

i know this isn’t really about self-discipline
haven’t i spent my whole life
asking for forgiveness
yesterday i shattered a glass
on the floor, then apologized
to the floor
how does anyone endure themselves

in the end, the pain i was avoiding
had already happened
if you let it
your loneliness will devour you

the door is closed but it is not locked
your name doesn’t die, though believe me
i have tried
these are choices,
not failures
who am i
to name you nothing
anyway, it would not
have made me any happier

how does anyone get over anything

are you any happier