and when I was walking home from that room
where we all sat in that red-hearted tub
I surely thought maybe you weren’t going to wake
in the morning when I’d come back
and hold you as you vomit up everything
from the night before and the night before
and the night before and I would part ways with you
in the day with your tears staining my skin.
Even a hot shower couldn’t wash away the streaks.
But I wasn’t sure if this routine would carry on
because I wiped the blood from your nose next to that haunted
room we fucked in, while those hyenas laughed
at the tissues in my hand. You didn’t remember
and you wanted more and more, and I couldn’t watch
you kill yourself even though you think you’re only escaping a part,
the whole thing dies, and you don’t realize that or
maybe you do but I’m barely hanging on.
A lot has been happening. I’ve been catching you
in a lot of weird ways and you’re not explaining things
anymore. You’re not talking anymore,
and your mouth is too busy with things that I keep seeing
when you tell me that you just went home, but that’s it,
another lie, and I’m back to pick you up— so we can go
sleep for ten hours at my house, and then tell each other all
the bad things we did that night, and go eat fast food in
silence, and wait for you to tell me you want to go home,
instead of our home that I thought you were building with me.
But that’s the thing— I met you with another promise,
and you weren’t looking at me but an hour later we were in love.
And everything was me and you and it was fast,
and it was angry, and convoluted, and made everything taste
metallic. Even our sex was who could get nearer to the jugular.
Maybe we hate each other, and maybe our love was just the hatred
in ourselves strewn into a sweaty situation, but I’d like to think that maybe
there will be one day when you call me to pick you up and you’re clean,
and I’m clean, and you just want to talk, and we do that. Maybe I see color
again, that isn’t red, and maybe I hear something other than my own heart
telling me death is only so many beats away. Maybe I taste something
other than the back of my throat caught up in wanting to say I love you,
but also fuck you, and maybe then I can forgive you.
Maybe now I can forgive you
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