You have made yourself a home among my sheets,
at the end of my bed.
My feet brush against you, as I sleep at night
and revulsion makes its cold way up my esophagus.
I’ve decided to sleep in a fetal position.
My knees high up, pressure against my
chest, feet scurrying away, afraid, until you
finally decide to leave.
In the morning, I wake up with you
clinging to the third rib of my right ribcage.
Lungs crying choked sighs out my lips.
Maybe it’s a tumor.
Don’t joke about tumors, honey.
It’s unkind.
But it’s unkind to grow exponentially larger
at night, and take over my bed.
Unwanted guest, scurrying between my legs,
as I drag my toes on carpet towards the kitchen.
You sit alone at the table and watch me make breakfast:
red plums in my pockets.
I walk away from your hollow face,
which now walks to the frosted
window of the back wall.
Before I leave, I lock you in my room
with some dry food and water;
the clack the lock makes behind me
feels like the fastening of fat buttons
on sweat-soaked jackets.
I face the walls of wind outside my home,
because I’ve read I should call it home
so that it feels more mine.
But you wave at me from the window and I
turn my face away from you,
knowing that by the time I come back
you will be waiting at the end of that bed.
Red sheets, among my socks and unwashed dishes,
the poems unwritten, atop the box I label melancholy,
baring your fangs at the sunlight that hits
the pale bouquet from overseas.
Lista de imágenes:
1. Anna Shteynshleyger, City of Destiny (Seascape).
2. Darla Winn, It Hits Deeper.
