I brace myself against this friendship.

She braces herself against her voice
Ringing with death. Enumerating atrocities

standing at the rail between us

how much sweeter is a sleep than a fuck?

i ask you this today to ask more important
questions tomorrow. i know you will frown
in response, and say you have to pee, you need tea,

tired of being a spectacle we withdraw into
shells made of paraffin we cannot breathe through.

am i braking myself in order to survive this
friendship? oh, lover, how cruel it is to leave me

breathless.
and then you want to read what i have written
and because i skulk away in shame, you think
i have been silent. but you are wrong my dear,
i cannot stop speaking of and to you, along the broken
lines i send my intentions against your deft response.