No, I didn't wake up today. 
I laid in bed with my eyes open, dreaming those petty, pleasurably nostalgic treasures--dreaming warm little knicks in my valves, knots in my veins, and lumps in my throat.
Dreams are cyclic, they say. Time is cyclical too, some say. It only makes sense that this snake eats its tail, day in and day out over what could've been. But worse, it gets sick on itself over what simply wasn't.

I imagined my face, more beautiful against your palm in the dim flicker of florescence. I imagined my ribs, stretching out like wings when you played them softly in the dark. I imagined imagining you, keeping my eyes shut, holding on for just a little longer, grasping desperately and breathlessly at my bedsheets. I hoped you would stay. I hoped I would stay, too.
But I didn't. We didn't. 

You saw through it all, in the light of day. No amount of manic words on the wall, or love notes in your locker, or back rubs and make up sex would ever make up love. There were too many things, between you and I. There were too many things to keep space for something like love, between licking wounds and the hate and your parents and my casket-- ironically -- was the last nail in the coffin.

With each shallow breath, I dig a bit deeper.
With each night, I spend a bit more of my soul,
so I can pretend to pretend
that my palm is your palm,
that my heartbeat in my own ears is the same
as the one in your chest.

I pretend my cold is your warmth;
I make-believe the depths of this trench, dug Mariana
is your hip bones at my back,
and that each labored breath in
is one of yours at my ear, breathed out.

Such a cruel vapor.

With each night, each blue phantasmal dance, I gladly trade my soul
for the visit of your smile, and quiet pale arms.
Together, we'll shed the worst of me
so I can live with the best of you.