i have been desperately trying to remember the taste of when i kissed you
because i know you did not leave acid in the back of my throat
and it’s a gross exaggeration to say supernovas erupted on our tongues
our kiss was not poetic. it was not bone-shaking or heart-faltering
it was sweaty and awkward and full of saliva and clumsy lips
your hands did not burn holes in my skin, nor did they send shivers down my spine
they grabbed and squeezed and explored the terrain of my body
(i wanted you to touch me, but i still wish you had asked permission)

i have been trying to write poems about you but they don’t sound beautiful
my words aren’t elegant.  i can’t even tell if they are my own anymore.
i was burning myself up trying to think of how to describe you in original ways
sick of words like fire and galaxy and acid and blood and bones and love
because the fact is, we were never in love. we were never beautiful
we were never the sky, and our kiss was just something to do on a Friday night
and everything we did had been done before in the same way a million times
so i’m done with euphemisms and trying to find synonyms for the word “beautiful”
if i had to sum up whatever we were in one word, i wouldn’t.

(what hurts though is that even though we were thoroughly mediocre,
i still can’t stop thinking about you every night when i lay in bed
and i keep writing crap poems about things that never even happened to us
and i still am imagining my bones cracking and i pretend i feel fire on my flesh
and i feel like my throat is closing up and so i write about blood and fire
and galaxies and tears and pain and love but damn it you’re not special
we were never anything special.)