Decant

Red cracks—
paintings in a smoker's house.
Four AM craves her
in gray lust, brown
letters tangled
in her curls.
She's beautiful.
Through those cracks—
we'd never seen someone
so decorous in black and white.
Fingers curl into bister
on paper;
eyes spread
across the sofa bed,
half-and-half on canvas.
Decay never hugged her knees
the way it held her heart.

I close my eyes against
the darkness when I try to sleep.
Blurred and heavy
hands against my eyes
push out the tears until I can't
force my lungs to eruption
any more.
You are lost in the dark,
I can't feel your arms
or your hope in
any part of what I was.
My teeth become me,
clenched and salted,
bitten cheeks
ground out to open
cavities to swallow the dark.