i curl up in the spot where i last saw you sleep. i'm the first person to do this in all of history. no you're not, they say. people have been losing loved ones for centuries, i guess. but no one's ever felt this before, i'm sure of it. i don't move for days. the fabric is still warm from your body or is it mine? shadows on the walls come and go, sneaking around in silence. people talk about you, ask about you, trying too hard to be nice. i don't like talking to strangers, you know that. i need you here beside me, you were always the one who talked. i'm just the one who smiles, i just smile. i smile again and again, my lips quiver, i nod my head. i can still hear your voice, a long-distance phone call. my room, my bed, my car haven't changed. it's as if they don't even know you're gone. i want to scream at the walls, i want to tell them don't you notice!? don't you even notice he's not here? but the words come from my eyes, not my mouth, and they're tears instead of sounds.

i have this memory. you're wrapped up in the sheets lying in bed and the bed is next to the window and the window is open because i'm smoking even though i shouldn't be and you tell me i shouldn't be because i am going to set of the alarm but the only alarm that goes off belongs to my crazy roommate in the next room who wakes up at ungodly early hours of the morning and thats where we're at because we drank so much i couldn't sleep without getting sick and you knew this and made me stay awake and so i made you take off your clothes because i was hot and you did it even though it didn't make sense and as i smoked you played with my toes one by one and told me how they were beautiful and how i was beautiful and i just hid behind my hair because you sounded like you loved me and i wasn't ready to be in love or even just be loved because my wrists were too skinny and the only time i'd ever read vonnegut was for school but i was always reading books about fucked up teenagers that found freedom or love or just felt okay and in the end that was enough and when i finished the books i always felt like that was enough and i guess thats how i felt that night like it was enough and maybe if you loved me it would be too much.

i swear i'd live in your mouth if you wouldn't laugh me right out

i want to kiss you. i want to steal the warmth from your lips and use it to comfort my own. i want to feel your passion and your anger and your hurt and if you feel pain i want to bleed. i want to cease to exist. i want to be a sole pair of lips entangled in yours, a pair of hands holding you down, fingertips that touch everywhere twice. i want to be the breath on your neck, the hint of moistness lining your collar, the shivers sliding down your spine. i want to feel soft and i want to sneak in and build up inside you until its so hard it almost hurts. i want you to swallow me whole. i want to seek refuge in the folds of your tongue and hide between the teeth that make up a perfectly manufactured smile that sells a million empty heartaches a day. i want to take hold of your words, just before they've been said, and keep them all in a jar for myself. i'd sacrifice the world hearing your thoughts if it meant i could wrap myself in your voice, a blanket keeping me protected and warm. you're selfish, you'd try to tell me, but before anyone could hear, i'd weave it right into my skin. i don't care what the words mean, as long as they're mine, i'm dependent on hearing you talk. i get sick to my stomach when i just think of your name, bursts of flame dancing over my bones. even when you're inside me, i can't get you close enough, i need to push you under my skin. i'll never understand you unless i become you, but you don't understand either, you just keep whispering iloveyou iloveyou iloveyou.

It was something I shouldn’t have been doing, and I guess that was the appeal. With the second sip I felt warm, and with the third I began thinking about the way we act when we just let ourselves go. How everything is better. How we get along so easily. How we just plain treat each other the way we always should have. We can’t remember what it’s like to not smile, and if we do then we cry so hard we start to hurt. By the time we hit a dozen sips, it no longer bites and we no longer taste the sarcasm, selfishness, or hurtful intent. We start to explore the warmth around us, finding comfort in entanglement. With the last sip our bodies have linked themselves. Feet to thighs, noses in necks, fingers interlocked. I honestly think that if our skin stopped touching, even for the slightest second, you’d disappear into nothing and I’d never see you again. For the rest of the night, I’m constantly checking to make sure we’re in contact, but you barely notice. You take me around the room, pointing out everything in sight, your eyes as big as a child’s. You keep insisting how important everything is, almost leaving me behind. I crawl into your safe place, but I’m getting lost inside all the folds.