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.
