Just One Place

It’s just like the way
I never remember middle names,
burn my coffee sixty-seven percent
of the time, and occasionally
treat you like you’re already dead.
There’s more than one definition for
“accident,” and sometimes I can’t
even tell if it should be capitalized.
I don’t mean it,
but this isn’t the first time
limbs have gotten in the way.
You wake up and then you wake me up,
or I wake up and I wait for you
to come out of sleep on your own.

I don’t know if this is working anymore.

You tell me you’re happy
and your irises explode,
blasting holes in the wallpaper
and letting too much light in
to see the furniture, or the door.
These are the sort of stories
I dream about. Not you underground
or in a city I can’t pronounce.
Some days, we pretend so hard
that we break our ankles.
I throw paint on some paper
and you’ve stopped writing poems.