a conversation with shame at five in the morning

Sachiko wrote:please
forgive me my
smoke detector
heart. i have
lived in fire
too long to
not smell it
on every horizon.

I am behind and catching up on all your excellent poems, but I love love this one.

and
sometimes, the
wind is warm
on my cheeks
and in my hair,
and the afternoon is carved
into something
resembling the
way you held
my fingers
in yours, and
minutes
spool into night and
i don't feel like i
have to resuscitate
myself after
every aching
one thirty
am breath.

i am
ill prepared for
the weight. brace
me up with swords
and forge a crown
from my spine. my
throne room is
five am. i can't
sleep.

i will be
quiet now;
i will pay my
fines; i will
sink through
all of my
misused words;
i will press
lace against
my wrists and
dream of
rain against windows;
i will wait for
autonomy; i
will; i will;
i will.

i can
taste sunrise on
the back of my
tongue. a cityscape
mirrors my
horizon and i've
already forgotten the
shape of
your hands curled
on the pillow. our
radio skylight blooms
a forecast of
sheets drying
on the line; these wrinkles
between us are
leaves, unfurling. i
smell grass in every
dying breath. I see
rain at the
bottom of every
coffee cup. (we are
a timeline, split; we
are a hemorrhage
breaking darkly.)

(i have
become a knight,
a cup, a
sword to plunge
into my own heart.)

i have
dreamt of you;
lace hearts and
damp windowsills and
ribs split along our
seams. we
have rendered ourselves
usurpers familiar; my
hand in yours is a conversation
with shame at five in
the morning. speak, dear
heart; your unsteady
universe is bleeding
into mine. (it is four
forty-seven and we
are rewinding; your
name is serendipity and
you smell like
rain falling in reverse. it
is three thirty-six; your
name is trauma and
you smell like gasoline
on my grandmother's
lace
tablecloth. it is two
twenty-four; you
are nothing
at all.)

it is
five am and
i am a cup
pouring back
the dawn, unspoken
and unbuilt for
consumption. (peel
back my spine; here
is my surreptitious
heart beating
backwards.

(dream of
me now; a
suit of armor, seventy-eight
cards in
the making, flammable
and sinkable, weighed
down into prophecy and
your absent pulse against
mine. it
is five am. i am
sleeping. i am
going. I
am gone.)