poetry dump — sinking ship

i wish i were enough to stay inside you.
i wish you couldn’t go a day without
          wanting to see my face or hear my laugh,
i wish the memory of me lingered on
          your skin, blew around you when the wind
          disturbed your hair

because, darling, we were a sinking ship.
i knew it, but i can’t help but think
          you knew it better
          (somehow.)
because when the waves took us, you were already
          swimming, already eyes on the horizon, already
          gone.
and i was tied up in your ropes and rigging, fingertips
          grasping at every splinter you left behind,
          wailing back at the wind
          (she thinks she is so powerful, but i think
          she is just lonely)
and now there are
aching bones
          cluttered up in my chest,
scraping like cheap heels
          against sidewalk grates,
          trying not to shiver in the cold waters
                     you watched seep into my chest as we sank,
          (when you stopped caring whether I swam or drowned.)
i grab the water up in my arms because these waves
          once knew the touch of your skin as well—
          we seep and weep the same salty anguish.
and i remember our nights
                     in darkness.
          my back arched against you,
          bending at my breaking points
                     because you made me feel
                     so whole and
                                lovely.
          your hands in my hair,
                     in my spine,
          in my every thought.
          your lips on my skin, on my soul,

          and everything that matters
          is the air i wish weren’t between us—
your mouth travelling back up my neck,
your words that beckon sleep
          before i am ready to let go
because those are the spaces in the sidewalk grates,
          the echoes in my bones,
the whisper across the waves that we
never were enough
and now you’re gone