Roommates

A poem • a promise to not let my words rot in my notes app

Roommates 


The plant
In the corner of
My bedroom knows me well
Stands next
To the mirror
Says nothing
Of last night

Watches me
Pull daylight
Through swollen eyelids
Making teal rivers
in my sheets
Wading through
Saturated cotton
With heavy bones.

The plant
Says nothing

Just stands there
Flinches whenever 
I come and go
Holds my
Secrets

Between its ears
Never asks for
What it needs
Holds its tongue
Like shattered glass.

We
Drink and stretch
Under early grey skies
Until silence between
Us grows sharp.
There is an infant
Beam of light

Rustling between the clouds
We hold our
Tongues like barbed wire fences
Like the truth
Is too fragile
To sit between our teeth.
We do 
This ritual everyday
It holds my terror
Through the night
Doesn’t speak of it either
Just pulls

A little more
Breath from its 
forest green locs
when I cannot breathe.

The plant 
Opens its chest 
In this little bit of light
Peeking through 
The aging beige window
We share
The room for a 
Few more yawns

I say, “I love you,”
Without thinking
And as the last vowel
Wrapped itself 
in the taffy of my lips
I caught a glimpse
Of myself in the mirror

The plant
Peeking 
around my calves  
says nothing
I looked at us both
For a while

Held the gaze
Like sticker briers 
Between mahogany eyes
Studied
Our fidgeting limbs
Noticed 
How we
both
Flinched 
as if
I had never said it
to either of us 
Before.