The Hollow

This year has sucked the
tears from my eyes, the
blood from my veins, the
marrow from my bones.

I am left hollow,
cracked in this crater,
lying as I fell,
broken by the earth.

What’s left is a pile
of empty organs,
discarded, shredded,
like old wrapping paper,

that could have once held
anything.

Cavities

When I slow down I can hear it—
the rising drone of dread.
Inhale
and feel it echo in my empty chest.
Exhale
and feel it whistle through the cavities
in my teeth and in my soul.

If I try to speak I will surely vomit
my darkness into the impartial air.
So I will sit, a ship in a storm in a bottle,
and swallow.

House Arrest

I wish I could strip the bed,
and wash you out of the sheets.
Instead, I have to wear you,
like my only set of clothes,
until your threads unravel,
and I can scrub you away
from my suffocating skin

with water too hot
and soap too strong-
until I realize,
dispassionately,
that pieces of me
wouldn’t let you go,
and were flushed away.

Sometimes moving on means leaving you both behind.
Brick your bodies in the walls of the house you shared.
Hang your skeletons up neatly in the closet.
Shut off the lights and leave the key under the mat.
Now stop—breathe it all in. Remember it just-so.
Suck the stench of death deep into your languid lungs,
and walk away, slowly—so the ghosts don’t follow.