The Business of Erasing Traces

Echoes of that smile whisper across my eyelids

Moments before I marked your lips with the berry stain of mine

Marking a time when we were mirrors of each other’s minds

You didn’t tell me that mirrors could lie.

My mirror lies cold on its back

My frostbitten fingers bring it up to meet my weary gaze

I smile.

I see my smile.

I see your ghosts.

My brain keeps your laugh an incarcerated ghost

Weavingwindingweeping inside my skull

I exhale your scent, sewn along the side of my neck

So carefully that you can hardly see the stitches.

Suns set into the dusk of memory

Ink spreads pandemic on wet paper

Paper memories rip to shreds

Between our intertwined hands

But I never asked for you to mend me, did I?

Hand me the tearstained pillowcase

And a side of insomnia

With a pinch of guilt sprinkled on top

Please.

I was looking for something earlier

Before I remembered that you had it.

And the echo of those moments makes me smile.