(poem for when enough slips away)

if you ask me— what I see in five (years // shadows // eternities)
i’d say:
 warm dinner  
a house with a corner  
a dog who sleeps like nothing hurts

but if i told the truth:
 i’d be bones
   under
     ground
        still
 at last
  without
   this trembling

he asked for a paper—
not the kind that wraps gifts
 but the kind that unwraps
     faith
 (as if love had a price
  or a deadline
   to disappear)

& i
 didn’t want his bank account
   nor his elegant exit
    nor the loneliness

i wanted
 to age with his freckles
 to wash his feet on sundays
 to call him home
   even if he was already there

now: everything =
 a question /
  without /
   a mouth
 a promise
  with no ground

and i—
 as foolish
  as a love poem
 as strong
  as a
   statistic

 (one more)
  divorced
   disillusioned
     desouled
       in a line
        no one
         wants to lead

if i could (re)tell it—
 i’d scream
  with all my ruins:
    nor for clause
     & no contract
       will protect me
        from the love
         that wasn’t enough

we have no children— but i birthed
  illusions
   & raised them alone
texts that now—
  stupidly—
   remind me
    of what i once felt

today:
 i don’t know
  if i have anything
   or if i am only
     the gap
      between
       what i dreamed
        & what was

a woman
 lying in bed
  dog curled
     at her feet

 the ceiling does not collapse—
  only
     the belief
       that it wouldn’t