We wear rose perfume but we still smell like bleach.
You’ve stopped trying to disguise the blood under

your fingernails with gold polish. I’ve stopped counting
the stains that bloom red on my carpet like stars,

like ink in water. You tell me people like us don’t
ever get better. A couple more nights like this and I’ll

believe you. Give me vodka, sunflowers, gasoline,
a revolver. Give me Jesus Christ’s desiccated corpse

and I’ll bite down on it. I miss you but I don’t miss
your apartment, the lamps that look like eyes.

This isn’t supposed to be an elegy. This is supposed
to be my taking the poison freely into my own

mouth, leaving suburbia behind. This is supposed
to be my stepping away from the edge of the road,

walking back towards the ocean and autonomy.
What I’m trying to say is I keep the jackknife in

the same drawer as your photograph. What I’m trying
to say is I could unstitch my skin with a scalpel

and find you nestled deep within me, heart
throbbing low and heavy, the color of tired skies.