we drove
with the windows down
even though it wasn’t quite warm
because it wasn’t cold, either.
and the boy with the curly hair
played Meat Loaf with the volume
at 37:
And I would do anything for love
I’d run right into hell and back…
i see your phantom whoosh
past on the side of the road
and wonder if i ever truly
felt your love, or
if it was just a ghost,
too.
we lock eyes.
i laugh a laugh i thought
i’d lost after i met you
and watch you dissolve
in the rearview mirror.
we taped our photos up on
the cinder block walls
and called it home, but
the word was slippery on
my tongue because
anywhere is a prison cell if it’s not
where you want to be.
i scratched his name into
my wooden dresser
followed by R.I.P.
and that 38″ by 75″ mattress was
my lifeboat through the desert,
leading me to mirages I’d awaken from
with teary eyes and a mouth full
of sand.
even the toilet paper
had my blood on it.
i would write love on my arms
in marker
to hide my scars,
but kept the ones in my
eyes exposed
just in case someone could hear
the way i pleaded
through the receiver: please take me
home, home, home.
language fails to express
the most profound darknesses of the heart–
the small cracks between the fertile soil of the
soul where only God goes.
There is no one where I am,
seeing through these eyes or
hearing through these ears, or
feeling the darkness in my stomach.
In all that I am,
I am utterly, darkly, alone.
Silenticel 