Nostalgia

I cannot forget, and I'm sure

neither can you.

When words are traded,

and an argument has been steered in some

wayward direction,

when your emotional vocabulary has been

bled dry by an over-abundance of focus,

or perhaps lack thereof,

you pick the sharpest words in your pockets

and stuff them between my ribs

in an attempt to achieve an effect

equivalent to what you have managed

to inflict upon yourself

in my name. 

I'm exhausted from painstakingly plucking

my own goddamn sentences from

weeping chest wounds. 

Even the memory exhausts me.

A sharp, asthmatic exhaustion

that leaves me blue faced

and unable to inhale.