I see you making love to sleep
stuck between your teeth,
waiting for the knowing
that glows into the sheets
as fingers lace inside your bones;
I creep into the cracks,
hoping loneliness will fade
back into the crumpled clothes I killed.

But scuffed knees and elbows remain alone,
dust coating me like winter clothes
in a shade to cover purple baby bruises,
broken bloody knuckles from rapping
at your frame, it's all the same
as the season before,
when you told me I was lemon ripe—
do you remember?

Now I look at you, eyelids dropped
across muddy white stones lodged softly
in your head,
and think of how I am not so beautiful,
less than what you see in her
who prances in your dreams,
so lithe, decisive, more demure
than such as I could be;
but I'll come when she is gone
to hold you in one piece,
you'll see.

I found a pair of angel's wings
nailed roughly to your door,
and they reeked of mediocrity,
wilting by my touch,
feather falling, molting slow,
trickling to the floor beneath your feet,
regretful;
did you strip away her innocence
so tangibly?

And you're still mumbling to yourself
through clenched jaws,
winding wires through the limbs
of a blinking marionette,
eyes so wide and terrified
by the crippled truths you spat
into her hair
as she was earthbound…
such a tragic comedy.

I wrenched those wings away from where
you clenched them by your heart,
laughed at darkness covering you plight
like safety blankets for our inner children;
then I nailed perfection to my shoulderblades
and soared aloft in bleeding flight.

Take pride— you broke my loyalty.