oh, but life didn’t dismantle us.

it wasn’t the seconds or the minutes

nor the what ifs.

it was those lightning fingers—yours that loved so gently and squeezed so tightly— those lightning fingers,

that damned mind,

irreverent expectations,

& a shrouded sense of ownership.

these fingers—mine they’re mine now they belong to me again—

these fingers bleed, pulled apart by the necessity of your wanting of your begging of your sorrow.

we broke like a fingernail,

grown back jagged and uneven.

can’t an unmarked number mean less than what it does?

ripped books, torn apologies,

half eaten pieces of toast, and sentences

that will never be finished

can’t the memories be enough of a ghost

for a lifetime?