is the space between us. Your place in bed

is a shrill pitch in the hollows of my ears

reminding me your pillow is cold. You cradle

my ribs in your fingers, make me ache without

cracking them, though you really could and I

sometimes wish for it. I hide the thought of you

in my tights, sheets of sandpaper shaped like

your jaw, raising the skin and counting down

sleeps where my dreams whisper tales to me.

Your every breath on Sunday is a

dollar I keep. I can afford everything

except you. You hoard all the colors

in your hotel room. Packed into your

suitcase. I am now our mile-wide bed.

I envy the rim of pop cans that get to

taste you and be sipped from while our tongues

meet and cannot tangle for the glass

between our skin. I chew the loneliness

and it is packed into my teeth, a cavity.

Savor the weekend and starve the week.

The archway woven in morning glories

with your absence inside. If I step

through it will we once again intertwine?

I’m so homesick for your chest and I

could drown you until you’re gasping for life

just to take a shallow bath in you.

I grieve Wednesdays because when was it last

that we glued our fingers together on

a Wednesday?  I am now just a half,

a third, a quarter of the dollar

that I am always trading you for.

Monday is the space between us