There is no tender way to say
our years apart were bedbugs
crawling along our skin
the further apart we moved
and crawled these barefoot floors
at the fragile hanging cord of lust
and painted portraits shades
of aluminum sunsets til dusk
drinking red wine to fall
again, and again, and–
there was no tender way
to leave and no tender way
uncorked to watch the final
seasons of idealism in how
we’d lay but never think
of what would happen should
one day we choose the dark.

(originally published in The Icarus Anthology, Summer 2017)