it is clear that i must find my other half

you've left strands of hair on my pillow and now i am certain that tonight, as it is, i will not sleep. i worry about the way you leave the stove on or lock your keys in your car. so careless but so precise. i worry about the way that you look at me, intensely, questioning or completely reading into my thoughts. i worry that i may be too transparent when it comes to you. but there is no such thing, as i'm sure you would say.

i worry that you will wake up one day and have forgotten about me. i worry in gallons and tons. but when your skin is touching mine and your eyes are on mine, you are (as they say) relief next to me. sometimes words just don't fit and sometimes my mouth can't move quite fast enough and sometimes all we need to do is fuck. watch my eyes, now. slowly drifting from your palms to your elbows to the curves on your back. i graze on the folds and the drops and the sweetness that encase you. i press my lips to your skin and feel the floor dropping faster.

i don't want to be an image of someone else. my life cannot be summed up in the creases of paper, clenched in your hands. you say that you know me. you say that we are important, a bigger speck on this never-ending map. maybe it is true. but it could all be washed away with the stroke of a key.

he tells me to keep my eye on the ball, follow the whizzing white point through thick, muggy air. but instead i am fixating on another focal point, my stomach twisting in lust and my head protesting in embarrassment. all in the hips. so i am watching your hips as you walk, moving in and out of my horizon line.

i stopped caring when you disappeared. apathy crawled into the empty spot next to me in bed and i happily accepted it in your place.

it is so remarkably easy to lie to you. i think of this now, as we lay here, under my sheets. you could be so easily manipulated into my antidote. i smile back, feeling quick regret spreading through my gut. i want you to leave. i did not ask for a morning smile or a reminder of all that i once had. she took it back and now you're here, an unsteady replacement. the need in your eyes makes me sick and i wish you'd go away. she rubs her eyes and looks around the room. i have been lying to you, i want to say. my lie went under your pants and into your mouth. i suppose an apology would fulfill the proper etiquette, but that is the last thing on my mind.