This time, I want to save you for last,

I let myself pretend that it will always be this way.

This time, the truth tastes too much like heartbreak.

I like to pretend that it is foreign in my mouth,

That I have never tasted a goodbye before –

And that I have not tasted one in you.

This time, I tuck the folded pages of a prolonged goodbye

Into the hollow place that rests at the bottom of your spine.

I smear the ending with the pad of my thumb,

And choose again to transform finality into the hopeful sadness of a half-formed comma:

A paper cut, a wine stain, the comfort of an unfading bruise.

Such tiny hands trying to hold the world still,

My fingers against your skin in the dark –

And perhaps if I fold the ending small enough,

We will forget that it exists altogether.

But for once, I do not want to write about you.

Stash my words beneath empty floorboards and the false-bottoms of April nights,

In the hollow of your mouth.

In the dark, the poison on your tongue can be so easily mistaken for honey.

It is almost enough to make me forget.

But for once, I want to remember;

Remember this for what it was,

Remember this for how it hurt.

A dull ache caught somewhere between my chest and my stomach,

Resting its head at night in the hollow of my throat.

For once, I am not hungry.

I cannot forget the taste of your mouth,

And how I will choke once it is turned to nothing but ink.

Honey and poison burn the same here;

They hurt the same.

Remember how the gate of your teeth felt against my skin,

I wish that you had left a more visible mark.

For once, my words are not enough for me to remember you by.

For once, I do not want this to be all that I am left with:

A half-finished letter, an unwritten epitaph:

If I cannot find a place to bury you,

Can I pretend that you are not a half-there ghost?

If you cannot sleep here,

Can I still pretend that you did not choose to leave?

Can I remember?

Can I ask you to remember too?

Is that unfair of me?

Empty parking lots and gravel roads,

The crooked funny story of a possum in the floorboard;

Of a broken finger, a broken bed, a broken heart.

The thick glass of beer bottle ashtrays and

Such tiny hands,

Pressed delicately to your chest as if I held the power to put you back together,

Or to hold you there.