i dream about closure because i know you well enough to know you’d never let me have it because you leave nothing but loose ends, straws to grasp at, an old pair of sweats you slip into when you’re looking for something more elastic

can’t even make eye contact in fear of acknowledgement but here you are parading around a disingenuous and spite-fueled accomplishment. afraid you might be forced back to reality from a delusional subcontinent

afraid you might use it as a jab the next time you go for the jugular, the next time you do something to remind her your love is never singular. always a warm body never anybody in particular

i know you’d never hand me peace in fear you’d have none of me left to hold onto. making sure to remind me i used to have all and then most of you, then some and now none of you

so you saturate my dreams instead. clenching my heart in your fists and putting pressure on my softest parts because to go down swingin’ was the only way we ever knew how to coexist

merging into traffic on the BQE you asked if i remembered when we were the same, “just as mean”. when we used our anger to justify bad habits, revisited our traumas daily, and called it a routine. stripping each other down to the studs right before we’d attempt a game of popcorn on a rusted trampoline

and without fail you’d put every ounce of weight into attempting to take the ground out from under me while making my arms flail wide open. no sign of remorse for what you were knowingly trying to set into motion, blaming me in the end for the causalities of such an explosion

spent years hoping you’d love me to peace instead of pieces, but what time doesn’t tell it sure teaches. because honey, you’re familiar like my mirror years ago but you slithered here all the way from eden just to prove what i already know: if we’re not careful, we’ll be strangled by the weeds we don’t outgrow.

-tbrumm

he’s from the sunshine state and i’ll be the first to say his love burns me deeper than any uv ray…the vitamin d dose my michigan psychiatrist said i needed since age 15 in order to keep the demons at bay

deep creased eye smiles with subliminal meaning showing me there’s vibrato and a whole lot of forevers in our even keel-ing

and if i’ve ever felt empty i forget all about it when i hear him laugh because every bad thing i’ve ever felt shrinks to next to nothing to make room for him, my better half

and if i’ve ever felt defeated i remember when i look him in the eye that everything happens for a reason and he’s my who, what and why.

-tbrumm