When I first started dreaming that you
never left
you still believed you hadn’t
that partial inclusion entitled you to exist entirely
and somehow the thought of you made it to the top of the stack,
every time
The dreams were warm despite
taking place in an imaginary January
because I was running from your abandonment while carrying you
the additional one hundred and twenty seven pounds of dead weight and
you pretending not to blame me, anymore
I get it
once I became the monster under your bed, and the shadow that a
nightlight makes against the hallway walls
I could never not be just that
even if I slept beside you and we painted happy adjectives on my body
Even in my faintest whimper
you still heard me roar
in the back of your head,
you knew there was no cure for rabies.

The dreams stopped being wonderlands
(although it played in the background
in low resolution)
and began to mimic bus terminals
Our sunrises began to shape themselves into yellow tinted lamps
that collect flies and mosquitoes outside of train stations and twenty
four hour convenience stores
they flicker and die every few months
I swear I’ll replace them
but I’m outgrowing the experience and all of your gifted sweaters
yarn cocoons
I wrapped myself in their knitting and you,
thinking I would come out
still yours
like that was the thing that made me beautiful
in my new dreams
we hold hands at the bus stop
you ask me what song I’m listening to,
but I wipe you off my shoes in the grass

 

__ar.