Love, we're through

You ever rouse together with your footie PJs warming

your neck sort of a noose? Ever upchuck

after a home-cooked meal? Or notice

how the blood on the bottoms of your feet

just won’t seem to travel away? Love, it wont to be

you could retire your toothbrush for like two or three days and still

I’d push my downy face into your neck. Used to be

I persevered your every word. (Sing! you’d say: and that i was a bird.

Freedom! you’d say: and that i never really knew what that meant,

but liked the way it rang sort of a rusty bell.) accustomed be. But now

I can tell you your breath stinks and you’re stuffed with s**t.

You have more lies about yourself than bodies

beneath your bed. Rooting

for the underdog. Team player. Hook,

line and sinker. Love, you helped design the brick

that built the walls round the castle

in the basement of which could be a vault

inside of which is another vault

inside of which…you get my point. Your tongue

is made of honey but flicks sort of a snake’s. Voice

like a bird but everyone’s ears are bleeding.

From the within your house shines

and shines, but from outside you'll see

it’s built from bones. From out here it's

like a graveyard, and therefore the garden’s

all ash. And besides,

your breath stinks. We’re through.

Reviews

[John the Baptist]

Usually, breakup poems put me in the alpha state by the end of the first stanza, but this one was different.The anger was there, but it was couched in such funny terms I really enjoyed it. Liked the way you brought "Your breath stinks" in again to close things out.