it’s not your fault. it shouldn’t have ended up like this, us, 

going from a steady sway of harmful fun to

finding your dance partner is the devil, you,

foaming at the mouth, craving more.

i miss my baby. i’m leashed to a beast.

maybe i should have given you

a second chance. a third. i need you

to cool the fires of passionate warmth. who will i

go on walks with to see the stars? who will teach me 

to drink pools, basins, with that unceasing, resourceful, 

curving tongue, stifling the air with racing drips and 

patterned peals in a way that says

listen, 

can someone please listen? 

i gulp gallons of reservoirs in a method that makes tides sink,

and fish plummet, and nothing more. 

you shouldn’t have to die like this, i think, even though 

you refuse to enter the kitchen. you sit under the tree’s

faulty knees, delirious. even the days of circular frenzy

seem to have passed. dying isn’t 

fun anymore: no last hurrah, or pizzazz from the 

exploding car catapulting off the aqueduct.

even as my finger pads pulse on smooth trigger

i cry, beast days swarming in droves,

teeth toppling ankles to broken bone.

hesitate. the leaves around you look like new puppies, eternal,

pickled in a jar of pillows.