When I tried to fill my pockets with stones and step into the river
you removed them one by one and cast them away after saying
my heart was already so heavy it would weigh me down
far faster than any piece of limestone.
In class I repeat your name aloud in my head, twenty times,
thirty if I’m feeling extra OCD, just one girl praying at your altar,
remembering how your mouth fell like holy wine over my spine
and the first time you left me I threw the computer out the window
until I heard the glass screen crash onto the lawn below and that-
that’s the sound of my heart. My father asked me why I was so obsessed
with fruit flies and I said because they only live for thirty days;
if I were one I’d get to spend a whole month with you.
You’re so beautiful landslides wish they could throw themselves
down your skin; I’ve seen a tsunami pause in its path
over a shuddering village just at the sound of your name
and the safety razor crossing my left wrist already knew
your mouth would cover the wounds it left behind
so it didn’t even try as hard as usual this time.
The second time you left Satan sent a postcard to God
begging for His forgiveness if it only meant you’d come home again;
sometimes there’s soy milk in the cupboard
but not enough orange juice so you buy 32 cartons just for me
in the middle of the night and I wish I could praise
all the dangling red roots leading to your heart
because every time I wanted to tie a noose around my neck
you made me tie it around those ventricles instead;
even when the bloodflow shut off you said you still loved
every frequency that vibrated from my body
even on the bad days
when I was just a 9.8 on the Richter Scale
waiting for someone to come cut me down.