as Context for the New
           Comparatives following internal restoration, but you allow all your other loves inside.
Softness is so much softer in the places it hadn’t been, before. You imagine the pain & its
memory as those distant sensations no one would ever wish upon you, again.

​

as The First Date
           There is only ever one first date. You are in ninth grade, at a bowling alley, wrapped in
your aunt’s leather jacket you’ve just grown into, Body Envy shampoo throwing orange fumes at
the boy with his hands stilled on your shoulders. Purple lights. Hollow metal rolls against
wooden lanes and his crooked smile pulls at your belly. Here, you imagine butterfly wings
scraping against the bottoms of your ribs. Later, the image will shift. This is the only time you
will be sure someone adores you.

​

as Small Gods
           You spend your life worshipping many small gods. Fingers thinning, concave around the
knuckles, your meals become sacrifices. Addict yourself to prayer, offerings. Bodies chiseled
into marble temples. For your gods, there is no categorical imperative. For them, you soften
yourself into pliable means, but there are no satisfactory ends.

​

as Small Winter
           You are folded back into him on the cushions, long window framing the couch’s back.
You watch pigeons twist their necks and shiver on the power lines. He’s set the thermostat to 60
degrees and swathed himself in the only throw blanket, fabric bunched between your bodies.
You lay on top. He says the fabric won’t cover his feet if you slide beneath with him. And he
doesn’t want his comforter to get dirty in the living room. And you want to love him. So you
nuzzle your nose into his exposed neck and tuck your arms into your ribs.

​

as Dried Funeral Bouquet
           The crystal vase collects brown decay where the water used to be. The petals dense,
thick, yellow. Rustling like paper when the vase is bumped. He keeps these dead things on the
kitchen counter and pretends they are love preserved. One morning, he is stirring milk into his
coffee, leaning against the oven. You wipe the counter down with lysol and paper towels. You
life the vase to rub away the rusty circle it’s stained on the granite. Put that down. What the fuck
are you doing? You do as he says. You wonder if he cannot love you because he is so full of
grief.

​

as Heart at the Door
           You’ve left your heart at his door. Imagine: He twists the brass knob and pulls, wind
swiping at his eyes. He blinks and squints, deciphering the front yard through black screen door
mesh. No one is there, but he might as well check the mail while he’s out. He unlatches the
screen door. On the front step, a pulsing red thing. Oxidizing, darkening on the wood. An organ. Slippery and soft-looking and with pulse, thrum, puff. Steam clouding from the aorta like breath. He frowns and steps over it. After retrieving his bills and credit card offers, he puts on rubber gloves and moves it a few feet to the left, behind the holly bush, so visitors won’t see it rot. Never mind the veins weeping behind your sternum; never mind to sacrifice.

​

as Side Effects
           May make you sleepy or dizzy. Alcohol may increase the effect. Avoid analyzing your
situation too closely while taking this medicine. May lower cognitive skills including but not
limited to: memory, problem solving, verbal comprehension, and attention span. Patients have
reported intense nerve pain, nausea, headaches, joint pain, chest pain, panic attacks, anxiety
attacks, vertigo, weight loss, weight gain, and more while taking this medicine. In rare cases,
thoughts of suicide may increase; if so, contact your prescriber immediately.

 

as The Voice in Your Head
           After you leave him, you realize he makes all your decisions for you. Even when he’s not
there, you hear him. You don’t remember what you sound like. You can’t decide what to eat for
dinner. When to do your homework. When or where or how to write or work out or sleep. You
what, “What do you want?” on a post-it note, stick it above your desk, but it keeps falling off the wall.
as His Side of the Story
           There is little perspective to offer through him because he is often asleep when it
happens. He has flicked off all the light switches and filled the dog’s water bowl. Carried a
basket of dry laundry up to his room. Her shaking never wakes him, so she learns to unsuture her wounds at night, when blood can weep all over the sheets and she thinks he won’t notice. She can tiptoe to the couch, drift her hand along the dog’s fur, and hate herself. There’s a theory
dreams are our brain’s way of processing the day’s heaviest emotions so we can see them clearly in the morning. She doesn’t need sleep in order to dream, anymore. And when the sun slits through dusty blinds every morning, she has returned to his warm arms fresh, ready to cook and clean and want for him.

           He watches her break, instead, from the periphery.

           Her dream-self is a ghost he glimpses, then convinces himself he hasn’t. Her eyes glassed and red, welling, then bone-white the next second. It’s a distance she puts between them on the couch for two minutes, then her heavy shoulder’s return to his chest. Her nose’s twitch. Her chin’s tilt. Dream-self slipping in and out of his notice.

 

as Gone
           & when I proved myself awake, finally, sleep offered itself dreamless. I’m resting in the
newest offers of love.