i don’t.

i don’t remember if i ever loved myself.

but all alone i loved, once.

i’ve slept naked, a tiger with nightmares, an animal on a leash in a burrow of fevers. night’s where i woke up & couldn’t move, because no matter where i left your memories, they found a tunnel back into my chest.

another dusk with double-espresso van gogh & it burns my drowsy throat to knowthe fluorescent pictures tacked to the back of my eyelids like postcards that sunk with the titanic, wish you were here, are reaching for me fromthat hole forever.

before my eyes were stolen & my mouth was packed with soil, i’d have a yellow american spirit & think of freedom.

those were the days. those were my days. those w e re.

& now they’re not & never will again.