the greatest loss
was your friendship—
the impossibility of it crawling back,
the danger of even speaking your name now.
and I look back:
maybe you were just fucking with me,
maybe we were just
daring the fire to burn us whole.

but there were moments,
moments that were so blisteringly real,
reality white-hot,
that haunt me.
even trapped in a cage
where we played
pressed into diamond,
we found ways,
to disappear.

I don’t sleep anymore, sweetheart
not since I saw you,
rocketing back into our world
a photo from last week,
a caption like nothing happened,
like we didn’t say goodbye,
like I was nothing.

at what point am I
the crazy person,
calling from a fake number
even if you still listen to my messages.
you still pick up for strangers,
for stalkers,
the ones you say
you don’t know.

maybe your stretching your legs out
in bed alone
maybe with someone else
and it would be so easy to resent you
if the world didn’t collapse
into ash
every time
we locked eyes.

my drug of choice—
you let me see myself,
I wasn’t ashamed of my own voice
your side effect
mu vulnerability
who will I give my world to now
who do I laugh along with
where do I send these memes
where do I spend my love
the payoff is gone

I picture it now,
I’m drunk and lost,
in the streets of the West,
so far from you
and where we left
missing you
and all those places never went,
all the outcomes erased,
together destroying the life
where we had it all.