It's 1 am in Nola and we're briefly gorgeous.

There's an old apartment somewhere in America tucked in between a city adorned in sin and the sky's blue dress.
Some nights have found me here wrapped around a skin that looks nothing like mine.
you say my full name, always
and i'm utterly unraveled into sighs
there are people who rip you apart
and there are people who pick up the pieces one after another
my problem is that you are both and i've learnt to take the little light that filters in with the darkness
we have been reenacting this 6 year long one night stand and refusing to let go
but darling, it's art to watch yellow skin entangled in white sheets while the moon mocks us
we flitter in between our real lives and boyfriends and girlfriends who come and go
we return and reach for each other in between the loves that we think will stay
i have tried to picture my life emptied of you and every time I find someone whose skin is a reflection of mine, i try;
but i end up seeing you in every yellow ceiling, every broken and splayed sun, every drunken lip.

remember that summer night we went camping
and you played Blind Pilot's "3 rounds and a sound" until i couldn't bear it
we looked out into the starless sky for the longest trying to decide what to do with a love like this
you kissed my neck and built a light house on my chest
and we held our breath and waited for the inevitable shipwreck
I swirled into every part of you, curled up and refused to untangle
i'm terrified of my skin and its constant need for touch
you tell me that the louisiana bayous are disappearing, that the gulf of mexico is swallowing them whole and refusing to let go,
you tell me that the next time we go camping that that piece of land would have been lost.
we never go camping again;
and i think of this night every time i'm on the beach watching the ocean gently try to engulf the earth

tonight, i'm drunk and crying because the demons return sometimes
they creep in when i'm not looking
and you're cooking me eggs
and reading me pages from your medical books; and baby
I would have burnt the world down for you if you'd asked



leggy.