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My eyes follow the green glow
of his kitchen walls as I lay on the floor,
The smell of his compost
And our dying bouquets leaking
Into my nostrils
Like cigarette smoke hiding
Behind a set of teeth.
I think I feel my body being lifted,
Floating up I make eye contact
With the drying candle wax on his dining table.
But, as I look down, my hands are still
Flat on the cold tile.
I don’t feel its touch.
It is all air.
(I can sense when he enters a room
Without needing to turn my head.
A thin string of awareness
Connects one rib cage to another.)
In this moment,
My eyes are still occupied by my fingers,
Tapping,
Up,
And down.
Numb sparks shoot up my arms
As if they are asleep
Every time I make contact with the tile.
My vision focuses on the pink glare
That is blossoming from the space
Between my touch and the floor.
The doorway is at my head.
My hair lifts ever so slightly
As I feel him crossing the threshold of the kitchen.
The tug of the string feels dangerous,
Like my bones are at the brink of their resistance,
Threatening to break through the skin.
I feel the sudden urge to run past his dark form,
Through his rotting front door,
And into the night.
I long for the cold from the pavement to seep into
The soles of my feet.
I hear the music of my blood too close to my eardrums.
But,
I stay,
And instead,
I feel his arms before he starts to reach for me.