You stand there wordless and wounded,
jaw dropping, dripping disbelief
upon the floor she dances over, careless;
words hurt so much more than garden pebbles
tossed and glanced away ashamedly,
all the words she slid down your throat
wrapped up in candy coated vinegar droplets.

So I just shrink backward and inward,
fading away so you don't have to look at me
like you looked at her when she was broken;
I will never be naked and vulnerable for you
like I always wanted to be when we were strangers.

We crumbled and sifted through each others' fingers,
once upon a time before your fairytale,
before falling apart was cliché and condescending;
she choked out all the pulchritude of falling,
left you on a pedestal above your means
where you starved in so many ways that your ribs
cried themselves to sleep.

What if flies and vinegar aren't such strangers,
if these acidic memories are killing us
ever so slightly enough to not quite see;
I can't look at myself in this honey hued conception
after all the minutes and moments of adoration I endured
for something or someone I needed
in that long ago used to be fairytale way.

Let me kiss away the speechlessness.
I'll leave a different lack of words in your mouth,
the kind that never quite goes away but always
lingers in the very nearly forgotten background noise,
just waiting for a memory to star in.

Let me be the forgotten unforgettable for you.