Stop Breaking Down

Everything repeats
your leaving. For hours
on end, I have outlined
fist imprints, condoms,
the bed sheet that
turned itself inwards to
knife marks, our sex-bitten
skin. There is no ache like
walking in to emptiness. To
grave stone and flat pillow
cases and drafts of fiction
manuscripts that open without
protest. It is easy to imagine
some younger version of you
coaxing me out of my hostile
language with your dead fist.
Tell me I have violated your
boundaries, how it should
be illegal to dissect
something that has no end
point, will purposely
stay unfinished. More
than once, I have tried to
trace your handwriting–its
geography, the anatomy of
its frail aches. There is
something strange and
reckless about a person
who purposely makes his
stories illegible. You
always said that nothing
is private. The world
demands a frighteningly
intimate understanding of
its celebrities, however
minor. Anyone with a blog
is a celebrity. You know
this better than I do,
and maybe that is why we
were so careful to drink
away the impulsive
thoughts that chased
us into hookah lounges and
whorehouses. My living
room knows nothing but
its own disasters. The
floor smells like cock,
the kitchen is quickly
becoming a mixture of
condoms and loneliness.
My friends tell me they
see my body in a halfway
house somewhere. For their
sake, I hope they are joking.
My intention was never to
impose upon them the same
kind of sadness that I grew
up into. I only wanted to
know what it was like to
become you. All teenagers
want a wet dream that allows
them to behave like this–
to wake up in a business
suit, to throw way too
much money at the naked
girl on the stripper
pole. The first time I
eyeballed you, nobody in
class said anything. I do
not give a damn if you were
okay with how I objectified
you in front of other
teenage girls. You never
said anything, and
whether it is true or not,
I want to think silence
implies consent. What you
wrote about me, I’m sure,
would sound different,
behave different, have the
kind of fists and bar fights
that could disarm anyone.
But enough of this
grandiose excuse for a
poem. No one gossips
over us anymore, over what
we may or may not have said
about each other. Language
is finite. Time to stop
dismembering the past.