Butterscotch

Somewhere between the amberblush streetlight of Division
and the butterscotch stain on the back of my throat,
there was a moment, glasslike
nearbent,
but not yet breaking

Half-formed, honey-drunk on the hour,
slipping past

the soft machinery of becoming

unbecoming,

rewinding,

rethreading

Warm, butterfat air washing in soft,

breathing through the cracked-window taxicab,

teacuplight broken open on my cheek,

whispering nothing is permanent
except the way we almost

changed

There was always something burning,
toast, bridges,
the last-good-version of me
I kept trying to revive
with mouth-to-mouth-watering memory

Tonight, I’ll wear that dress you loved
in the color of apologies,

skinbrushed and memorycolored,
while the past rides shotgun—silent
adjusting the mirror like it still matters
how I see myself

because when mirrors grow honest,
the corridors echo less—
as everyone has poured out

Let us go then, you and I,
through the goldblood hours of almost,

where the air tastes like melting records,
where every street sounds like our song

no one teaches you how to bleed pretty
not the swan-pale wrist pressed
to the cold porcelain tile
half-lit in someone else's forgetting,
no, you learn it knees-to-marble,
cheek to linoleum, the radio silence of
nothings buzzing in your teeth
in the love that didn’t learn the language

He liked it in ruins, sweet with shadow
so i sucked the ghost-sweet butterscotch slow,
mouthful of golden-glass,
let it split itself soft and sharp,

the bloom red blooming—
behind the teeth,
a salty flood

It cut me
but no—I didn’t spit it out
I kept it
I kept it all