This month I gather every single crushed butterfly from my backyard
into a bouquet without a final sentence. Every half-moon,
my tailbone aches like a lost soul reborn into the wrong person’s body.
I cry wolf, then cry blood.
Scientists have determined, after various tests, that the tongue
is the strongest muscle in the human body,
but after spending so many nights howling uselessly at the moon,
it just feels like an unwanted appendage that someone should remove.
After all, it was the only tool I ever used to write poems to you.
The most romantic thing I ever said while we were still together
involved asking you to let me bleed on my own
instead of in your arms for once.
Tonight I bring the butterflies to your bed at the exact time
I know you will be sleeping in hers. I spread them out evenly
so the wings will break when you fold yourself into them
like yolk into batter. So their ruin will be the sound
of my lost flight. So their destroyed sheen will remind you
of how your absence slowly drained me of color.
I used to be able to fly before you left me.
Now I’m attached to the earth with claws
that won’t ever stop sharpening themselves against the whetstone
of my own heartbreak. Now, if I tried to fly,
the moon would push me away just like you did.