If I was a better story teller,
would my teeth still be shoved in the spine of this book?
Gumming through the pages of our torrid love affair,
swallowing the chapters I didn’t like.
None of this added up,
an entire encyclopedia but not an ounce of truth.
I saw you taping over the facts and scribbling with stolen paint markers about what had and hadn’t happened.
I felt my hands turn red and my face even redder,
my neck bending from the pressure of the burden you put on my back.
You left me with all these books and nothing to write about.
Every time you opened your mouth,
I lost another muse.
Please stop saying my name in your sleep,
you’re not the only one being haunted,
and my ghosts don’t live on a shelf, like yours.