That morning I watch the new daylight air
tease the curtains.
You, I notice, have the look in your eyes.
The look that warns me that
soon we will circle back
again.
The look that assures me that you have
forgotten the most basic hand spit promises between us
And you say
        You say even as I slide away, creating the safety of
         a mountain range of sweaty sheets between us
                You say, "I am in such awe of you. You love me with such courage.
                 You are so unafraid of the vulnerability this love
                 Imposes on you."

And if you heard me when I tried to tell you all the things that
get lost when you destroy my carefully arranged sheet barrier and
reach to force yourself inside my mouth so that I will be
silent, if you heard me at all, I would
promise you, just like I have always promised you,
just like I will promise you every morning and
during every unbearably hot summer nap and in every
teen-filled movie theater and every stale airplane cabin --
It is not courage.
It is an absence of fear.
Courage, as you know, would imply that I felt
that something could hurt me.
And that is not the case at all.
No, only absence of fear
because
it will be so easy
when you decide that I am overly needy excessively selfish not as pretty as I used to be unable to give you the commitment you want not exactly who you thought I was or what you hoped for a different person than I was when we started a different person than I was yesterday a different person than I was ten minutes ago
even then, when you will say the most horrible things to me,
It will be unnaturally easy to forget that you were ever there.
This has always been my promise to you.

You will, as usual, throw circus knives and hurtful words and
I will, as usual, cry and be destroyed,
crawl into the dirt and let it settle into my airways,
resent you for making me
remember how this feels.
You will, undoubtedly,
Send emails to all our friends telling them lies about me
They will not believe those lies, but you know that I will.
You will take all of my favorite dishes when you move out
just to make it ugly.
Whenever we're at the same bar together,
I'll see you making out with other girls and
making comments when we talk about how
"she" makes you so much happier
It will be, as usual, fantastic.
And I will take it.
Until I have become a small, small
particle of lint. As small as you'd always hoped for.
And then I will
Starve myself until you shoot up out of my stomach like yellow bile.
Scrape until you are cleaned from beneath my nails and all that
is left is tender, raw pink cuticles.
Shave every inch of my body until the razor burn makes me
look like a zombie in a horror movie on cable tv but at least I will
know that every hair that still carries any trace of your oil or your
skin or your cells has been removed.
And then I'll take my razor burned body and
soak it in a steaming tub full of Epson salt until
every layer of skin that you may ever have permeated
has been stripped off and I have to walk around covered
in gauze because it hurts even to have air touch my
raw cut up skin.
I will pluck out my eyelashes and scrape beneath my eyelids.
I will drink boiling water until the lining in my mouth has burned away.
I will set the sheets on fire in the backyard and have the rugs cleaned,
scrub the bathroom with bleach until my hands can never
be soft again but you are removed from the grout.
I'll sell your dvds and your books and that stupid
stupid Hawaiian shirt collection.
I will cry until every possible body fluid that ever existed inside of me
at the same moment in time that you may have touched me
has finally left my body,
exfoliate until every last trace of you
swirls down the shower drain while I
lean weakened against the tile and
watch with satisfaction and tell you to
take it, take another little piece of my heart now baby
and another and another and another until there is nothing left
to force the blood to pulse upward through my body
towards my brain and into its spongy tissue
triggering the chemical reactions that are the memories
of you and me and blankets on grass,
wine from the bottle on the back porch swing,
arguing over who left the shampoo bottle empty.
Eventually will gravity take over and
all of the blood will rush downwards and collect in my ankles
causing them to swell and blister and become purple monstrosities,
like the ankles of old women in nursing homes.
But even like that I
will drag myself arm over arm to the corner of Union Square,
Beg for spare pieces of pride
from the people outside of Macy's,
and when there are enough of them I will use them
to purchase the right to stand
on the top of Telegraph Hill and scream from the top of my lungs
YOU NEVER EVEN EXISTED YOU WERE NEVER EVEN THERE THESE ARE NOT MY REAL MEMORIES YOUNEVERCOUNTED

And then I will believe it.
And then I will be fine.
Like none of it ever happened.

Trust me.

It will be that easy.

So do not say, as you roll over and
Run your hand along my face
in an effort to claim some concept
I long ago stopped writing about,
Force my fingers to press against your heart
hoping I will find it affirming enough in its
passionate beats,
Turn me and maneuver my limbs so that the
fresh sunlight hits me at the angles you most enjoy
viewing instead of
the angles that keep the cold spots on the tops
of my thighs
warm,
Do not say that that I love you with such courage.
It is just an absence of fear.
Only that. Nothing more.
And that is not the same thing at all.
That, my lover, is easy.