I want you to know that it has never happened like this, that I will probably never know what to do with it. My falling has never been a quiet fumble in the dark, has always been unlucky ankles crossed over untucked toes;

Falling into the arms of those that cannot carry the weight of me, or my shame.

We wear the same face, but there was never enough room for the both of us here.

You are the loudest fumble of my life and I will let it hurt forever.

The poems I found in you, the poems you made of me.

Once, I told you that poetry could not come to me through you,

This unbroken heart that you know how to hold together –

You were already poetry.

My tongue moves slow, and it still tastes of you;

Secret cigarettes and sleep, all the things that you cannot let go of.

I still look for you in the dark,

Chest exploding with dreams

Your head still rests upon my pillow,

But there is only a ghost sleeping here in my bed.

Fingers against my spine,

You have touched the softest parts of me so delicately –

And still yet, you have left the deepest bruise.

How I touch it in secret,

How I cling to the sheets and attempt to twist them into the sound of your voice.

My name tastes dirty in every mouth but yours.

How messy it makes me, and how whole.

I am never a piece here, with you I am always all of me.

Your hands, so soft, and sweet against my dirty skin;

How could I bring myself to ever stain you?

You tucked my heart into you without ever looking at it,

Left it to rest in that overflowing piece of you,

Pinned to your ribcage –

Do you still feel the weight of me, even when you do not know that I love you still,

Always.

How that bed did feel more like yours than mine - or ours.

How I have never been a part of one before.

Eyes pried open,

A cracked ceiling,

How you belonged there and I did not.

I still lay in this bed of ghosts,

Listen to the sweet song of your breathing, the swell of your chest,

Skin smooth as salt.

There is a ghost in this seashell, a piece of you that I allow to rest at the hollow of my throat,

I learned the sleeping tide of your heart,

And is this not love?

How I see your face where only ghosts should be,

I fell into you and you did not stir.

The soft-edged back of your lullaby carries me,

The nights I should wake up alone.