Take it off,
the clothes, the barriers, the scabs,
open your legs, your wounds,
like cicadas,
buzzing,
you can hear them a room over and our neighbors,
well,
we turn the TV up so they won’t hear us fight.
We turn the TV up so they won’t hear us fight,
but still,
we yell louder and louder and louder,
and louder,
until I’m convinced,
one of us,
will burst,
and we’ll be all over the couch,
the floor,
there with the remains of the careless I love you's,
shiver ing bod ies,
blown apart,
crawling through
the room like
double amputees.
Don’t call it we,
it is you,
and I,
and we fight because you,
are you,
and I,
am I,
and love…
We fight because it is easier,
because we have practiced it,
circling the bedroom like two fencers,
our sabers, held out,
call it dancing,
call all of it,
dancing,
the shattered glass on the floor: glitter,
the dispatcher on the line: music,
the lives we thought we’d live: spectators.
I wish you’d hated me sooner,
we would’ve left this room less bitter,
we would’ve left this room,
without knowing what we are capable of.