I am writing this alone in the place
where we first touched.
Here in this concrete cavern,
where hands first wandered,
and tongues first tangled.
You breathed “fuck” into my mouth on every exhale,
like some sort of prayer—
I could taste each letter echo against your teeth.

I am leaning against the wall you pushed me into,
one hand in my hair and the other around my neck—
somehow that doesn’t seem romantic anymore.

I suppose our love was always violent.

Now I’m spitting into the parking spot where you invited me into your car, as if you’re standing here in front of me,
wearing that ridiculous khaki-colored parka of yours.
Don’t flatter yourself thinking I miss you anymore.

I used to believe I’d lost my magic when your fingers were no longer dripping down my spine like water,
and your lips were miles away,
muttering lies into the ears of new, pure, Madonnas
instead of dragging down my chest.
I thought you’d peeled off a part of me with my skirt that night in the back of your car,
and slipped it into your glove compartment with everything else you’d forgotten,
but when I called my therapist shaking in the middle of the night saying I was afraid I didn’t know who the hell I was anymore,
she whispered into the receiver,
“Dear child, you are everything you ever were without him. Please do not blame yourself.”

For months I couldn’t rid myself of your messages as they collected dust in the back of my phone,
and I read each profound profanity like a bedtime story,
hoping I’d wake up and
it would all have been a dream.

“Baby, I want you on top of me so badly.” [delete] [save]
“Fuck, I could be touching you right now. Soon.” [delete] [save]
“God, I miss kissing your neck.” [delete] [save]

Spider cracks had spread across my bones so vastly
I swore I’d shatter upon impact,
yet last week I passed you on the street and felt nothing.
I smothered every one of our memories
in the praises of chain-smokers and philosophy majors who told me I was a goddess they wished to worship,
and each transfusion made my blood a little stronger.

I told you the last time you called not to forget me, but it seems I misspoke—
Don’t forget this:
you were never more than a disease my immune system rejected.