apocalypse

‘i like muffins and coffee — and cigarettes’ you tell me
the morning after the end of the world;
the day the dawn broke three times
just like my voice saying hello-goodbye-i-love-you
from six minutes or sixty miles away.
who did you watch the sunrise with,
besides your full heart
and your empty bottle of gin?
you falling-apart-time-traveler, you
once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity,
gone-and-back-again
fucking anomaly.
the morning after the end of the world
you looked so goddamn lost and it
startled me, so maybe i startle easily
or maybe
not. maybe not.
you tell me to be gentle with myself
and you talk like you know how to do that
but you don’t say anything about
the ways you punish yourself
and i would but
the words get caught
in the ashes
in my throat.
i tell you to let yourself be soft
even though
i will always be walking backwards
away from you
to keep you from getting
under my skin.
i take ten pills from a bottle and stand underneath
the shelter of a bus stop, and the bus stop
is also a bottle, but instead of love notes it’s full of
bus schedules, and maybe that’s all i get right now,
so maybe life is cruel or maybe
lovers are just really good at telling each other
what they should be.

By Katherine Fletcher

Biography: