i’ve been counting all the bones

of the dancing skeletons

crowding inside my closet

i found a picture of where we used to call home

in your old black wallet

when you left i kept it

but i must have forgotten

 

looking at that picture

i saw that

our house became a graveyard

and everything we had

we buried six feet under

the memories are ghosts

lingering

haunting me

 

we slept side by side

but we never spoke

and now every time i look at you

i get the urge to choke

because we were drifting apart

farther and farther away

it happened so slow

so slowly

we didn’t notice that we were broken

completely

 

****

i’ve been counting all the bones

of the singing skeletons

hiding inside my closet

 

i started listening 

and they reminded me

of when we were kids

young and naive

i told you i loved you

it was the first time i’d ever meant it 

in my life

but we were never really kids though

we grew up much too fast

you felt forty

before you turned nineteen

and i was on the same path

 

you needed a remedy 

for your frigid sheets

you said

and i was just grateful

for a place to rest my head

but something more beautiful

than we could have ever imagined

grew from that moment on

i could see it in your kaleidoscope eyes

back then

 

***

i’ve been counting all the bones

of the silent skeletons

dangling neatly in my closet

the wind from the fan

brushes them together

making quiet whispers of contact

and i sit on the carpet and realize 

it was all my fault

there was a canyon in my heart

that drove us far apart

and there was no wood

for me to build a bridge

 

i’m at home where the wild things are

and lost in the world of men

knowing that just because

i get through one day

doesn’t mean

i’ll get through the next

 

darling all i want to say

to you

is that there will always be 

a place for you

with me

by my side

in my bed