Empty Bottles

Before there were stretch marks on my arms. Before I dreamt of cobras biting back their poison from inside of me. When the fangs were still my own. It seemed I'd never die. It still seems I never will.

Before he told me I was wrong. Playing the moon to my stars. As the stage sagged under our strut. Every word a weight to carry back to where the curtain waited patiently. For our dialogue to turn. And face it. Fumbling soliloquies that try, but can't prove what we were. Nor turn us into who we want to be.

I was right. I was wrong. Always have been. Notched bed post thudding against my skull as I try to lseep. As I search for what there is left to feel. Flowers still left to put on graves unmarked. Eulogies in paper airplanes waiting for an empty runway.

There's nowhere else to go. No place I haven't been. Plastic faces flaunt their broken rubber bands and dare me to try them on. Look through those slits and try to see.

What used to be there. The quake of the chorus as it would let the song go.

The empty bottles in his stare when I said it wasn't enough.