Withdrawal

a poem

your mouth

crooked

corrected itself in laughter

most often at me

diminishing myself.

your lashes

that thick

enviable fringe

always lowered

in withdrawal

when I spoke.

and your hair—

a golden mop

taking the light

shampooed in

scotch and

something sickly

some evidence of

a better

life.

I miss the way you turned toward me

in the night. the room rinsed

streetlight blue.

you didn’t wake

only reached for me

as though I were a habit

something you do

while thinking of something

else.

I do not miss your alarm—

that thin scream of morning

or the sound of your belt

the metallic certainty

of it fastening

more final

than anything you

ever offered.

You were already gone

even inside of me

you were leaving.