" –

you will find in the dark? Sheets soaked through

with sweat and the milk of the moon,

your belly split open to sprinkle out the stars,

gritty like glitter and just as fine.

Shadows gather in the corners of your mouth

as you try to remember how it feels

to not be hungry. He will have just coaxed the

universe from inside of you, and you will be

wondering why you cannot even be satiated by the sun.

Hungry girl, pretty girl —

His lips are like stars burning, and you can taste the end in your mouth;

you would die for him, and that scares you.

Not because you are frightened of the dark, but

because you are frightened of what you will find is

waiting for you there.

You rest your head on the desert planes of his skin

as the sky falls, and you are finally full.

It was not your fault that you were made this way.

You are a greek tragedy of a girl,

your eyes are meant to be made of heartbreak.

The stars crossed when he kissed you that first time,

but you were too drunk to notice.

Notice the way his hands hold you as if you are

already a ghost, his fingers missing you before you

are even gone.

Notice the way that you have piled up in his corners,

he throws open the windows and you dance across

the wooden floors with the sunlight and the

moonlight too —

You were made for the missing,

And he has missed you from the moment you arrived.

When you are gone, he will be frightened of

what he found in the dark.

Sheets dry with the smell of you, pomegranate and

the moon, you left yourself in the thread.

Shadows will gather beneath his eyes his stomach

splits open; he will have to remind himself to eat

when he is hungry, but the taste of you still lingers in

his mouth and he is afraid of washing the stains

away.

He tasted the universe in you, and he would have

died for you if you had not been made to die for him.

He rests his head on the cemetery of your chest

and listens to the ghost of your heart,

and in it he hears home. "