How much you must have hated me
to hate you.

don’t you know that every day your fading
smile your smooth face
(all but the crease between your brows growing

deeper)

don’t you know that your pale skin
papery dry, lily petal thin
and your eyes

that never looked long at mine
like two shells, scraped by sand, burned by sun,
blind and bruised, two blackish blueish wells on
your face

empty

empty

said everything you couldn’t

your mouth like a papermache stain
swallowed sentences
syllables
three little words
l

e

a


k

i


n



g

pleasehelpme.

And I tried
and I cried
and with you

I died.

Because don’t you know
now we’re both dead
because you killed you
but I died instead.