the mornings I spend with her 

feel as if they take place at a remove from the rest of my existence –

her legs intertwined with mine, pink-gold sunlight dancing across her collarbones

I want to wrap myself into and around her and never let go

she feels like magic beneath my fingertips and yet –

I know she is no good for me

that when she leaves a part of me empties out and floods the spaces she’s left

but never flows back to me

I know that she does not love me, 

and that she never will 

that these ethereal mornings are to her as inconsequential 

as a cup of coffee on a bench somewhere comfortable but 

unremarkable

she tells me I am not someone she is proud to share

I am not, I am not, I am not – 

she digs at the holes where I am unfinished and I swell to fill these spaces with some substance that is 

like me and 

also not

she throws pennies and bits of rock at my window while I sleep

and I drink too much

she is gone for days and days and weeks and 

when she comes back to me I hold her as if she had never left at all

sometimes, at night, I cry 

because she is so beautiful and her touch is so familiar

I know she is no good for me –

that she takes and takes and takes and to her I am not sacred, 

to her I am incomplete, to her  

I am not lovely

sometimes, lonely in her stead, 

I try to mold myself into the person she wants me to be

she comes to me now 

in moments of vulnerability – 

as I hold fresh peaches, alone, at the market 

as I weep at the Museum of Fine Arts 

hers is the voice I hear 

when I pause at the things I have not created, the books I have not read, the person I have not become

I know she is no good for me –

still

in the morning

I miss her