Untitled 144.

i smell like smoke,
and poetry, and all the things
that move in slow motion, far beyond
your understanding.
i look like
a good fuck, and an hour of intelligent 
conversation, when you can’t get it up
or speak or think clearly,
and i want you most
when i’m on my way home
in the evening, when my eyes
can’t seem to adjust
to the darkness, to the blare 
of the streetlights, to your
voice singing out the window
from my passenger seat
because it’s not there. i have chewed
my fingers to the bone
waiting for your back 
to arch and straighten, for your knees
to lock, for you to carry me
from your couch to your bed
at two o’clock in the morning. 
i found love in your coat pocket, under
back porch stairs, behind
six different sets of bleachers, but i 
left it in all of those places, and
i wrote our initials on every surface 
i could find, on bathroom stalls, 
traced it on the underside of your tongue,
but it’s gone.
your bedpost will never have enough
notches 
to count all the times
that you fought tooth and nail
to have me 
but still never fought 
to make me stay.