"Hi"

Tell me that you haven’t felt like this for years
way-out high on red wine. Tell me about
2005 and the cycle of time, how you never
would have dreamed of seeing me here
and tell me that it’s magic as your long
fingers curve around my shoulder
bone sliding over bone
eyes swimming in the haze of the heat.

I remember how they warned me:

“People like her have addictive personalities. Don’t go catching that”

My belly is still filled with words
from all the times I swallowed
instead of asking about
the mouth-sized bruises on your neck
or the voice on the other side of the phone.

But there's safety in the folds of chaos,
symmetry is the thing I fear the most.

The symmetry of a funeral procession, a panic attack or following down a spiral
as
far
as
it
will
go.

While picking at a block of cheese
you tell me about yourself as a child
and I’ve heard these stories before,
I can mouth the words.
You thought sadness was a channel
for the men from the blue moon to travel through.
Unlike me you take pleasure in tumbling over part by part,
giving in to your own mind like damp laundry in a dryer.

I wonder how often you are touched these days,
if anyone kisses you on the silvery skin
beneath the frame of your glasses
or the scar between your toes?

There’s expectancy in your eyes, a hopefulness,
but I know it will collapse once our hearts stop raining. 

You clear your throat like you’re about
to say the most important thing
there is to say between two people.

“I’m sorry. I mean I’m sorry for not being sorry”

It would have broken me, if it hadn’t been so familiar.
Reminding me that things never just end
they always fall apart.