and i think i found your name in one,
two syllables in a landslide of symptoms:
if you are experiencing these,
take one tablet. place it under your tongue,
and let it dissolve.

i learned when i was young
that heartbreak was forlorn, a rag worn
down from soap and scrubbing so i could feel
the floor underneath, still dirty,
my fingers raw and threadbare and unclean.
my heart walls are thin.

but these tablets don’t taste like dirty dishwater;
they taste like blood from biting my tongue,
not telling you to go f*** yourself,
a bitter iron stuck between my teeth,
and sugar doesn’t make the medicine go down—
i swallow with a sip of my screams.

i could rip this silence apart with my fingernails,
leave dirty fingerprints on the space between us.
when i speak, i want my words to draw blood
because i’m wondering if you ever existed
the way i thought you did.
prove to me you were real.
say my name and swallow with dishwater.

do you close your eyes when you throw it down your throat?
does avoiding my gaze help you forget
my name, the way i felt in your arms,
the way you inhaled me? to you
i am a gas mask, breathing out anesthetic
so you don’t have to feel me.

before you drift off, hear me:
i feel you.
i feel you like i feel the skin of my knuckles stretch.
i feel you as a sharpness in my chest, my lungs tattooing
your name like a battle cry on my breastbone.
i feel you in my heart beating
my ribs, screaming your name like a battle cry, screaming
never forget.

i found my name in the roots of your wisdom teeth,
the opening line of a poem frayed
in the pits of your mouth. tell me,
do you get tired of numbing the space
in your home where i stand?

my grandmother told me road trips
are a cure for lovesickness,
but i drank all the gasoline
and you won’t risk
striking a match, making a sound.

symptoms may include:
clichés, writing poems
in which i avoid your name.

this tablet tastes like ashes, like putting out a gas fire,
and warning labels are temptations
to fall in love with emptiness.