When I think maybe you've died

I wake with a shell in my throat

and you sitting like a

rotten cabbage on my

bed. And then you're

fainting in a waiting room

after my chin

busts like a cantaloupe, you are

toppling like a tower

of cards—

so colorful,

so fucking flimsy.

But I can always burn cards,

I can always swallow food.

I can always burn you.

Then I remember maybe you've died

and there we are again—

you're throwing seashells

into the Pacific,

your body skimming the water like a paddle—

and I am cluttered

by so many vacant

ribcages—

waters sliced

by dull knifes.