They Can't Put a Cast on a Broken Toe
They Can't Put a Cast on a Broken Toe
I dream that he is balding and that I still live in my mother’s house
And while I’m at it, I dream that my mother is still living in her house
That she is alive and
So is my favorite cat.
I wake up with my throat swollen
As if it tried to close around the words I said while asleep,
‘I’m so happy we’re talking, again,’
‘I missed you.’
The words I would never say linger within me, make me feverish but cold.
I dreamt we stood, talking on the street corner we used to meet at, and when I wake up my head has filled with fluid because your voice breeds infection in my ears.
But it’s my voice
Warped and muffled
and coming out of your mouth and into my ears but really it’s all
inside of my head.
And I saw myself being kissed by you and I made you do it and I let you do it but it made my skin crawl and I forced myself to ask you to stop.
I never thought I would ask you to stop.
I wake up and my lips are cracked and bloody.
Your hair was half gone, as you scootered down my street,
I construct a version of you that gives a fuck about me
But I can’t make you look right because you don’t and we would ever scooter together
I know damn well that we threw out my old, broken scooter when we sold that sad, empty home on the corner,
And that you wouldn’t stop to talk to me even if I wasn’t just as embarrassingly sad and ruined as that home that someone else lives in now
But now my hair is falling out in huge panicked clumps in the shower.
It’s self destruction
Or maybe, somehow, it’s you
Everything is inverted
I imagine you bruised but I wake up bleeding.
They Can't Put a Cast on a Broken Toe
I dream that he is balding and that I still live in my mother’s house
And while I’m at it, I dream that my mother is still living in her house
That she is alive and
So is my favorite cat.
I wake up in the wrong house with my throat swollen
As if it tried to close around the words I said while asleep,
‘I’m so happy that we’re talking, again,’
‘I've missed you.’
The words I will never say linger within me, make me feverish but cold.
On the street corner that we used to meet at
we stood, talking
I effortlessly listen to the same, tired excuses
When I wake up my ears are filled with fluid
I saw myself being kissed by you
An old routine
I couldn't stop my skin from crawling and I forced myself to ask you to stop.
I never thought I would ask you to stop.
I wake up and my lips are cracked and bloody.
Your hair was half gone, as you scootered down my street,
As if we were 18 and pretending to be 8, again
That I was about to grab my rusty scooter and we could act like
the excuses would stick, this time.
I construct a version of you that gives a fuck about me
But I can’t make you look right because you don’t
I know damn well that we threw out my old, broken scooter when we sold the house
that broke me
And a you with me isn't you.
Never was
On a corner that is me
you are missing pieces
the long hair you claim to love
I take from you
Now my hair is falling out in huge panicked clumps in the shower.
I imagine you bruised
and I wake up bleeding.