Bodies in the Back Room

There are dozens of bodies in your back room.
You try to keep the door closed, but sometimes
their memories pry the barriers open and climb into
your bed and your brain, just like they used to.

I wonder where they came from, but simultaneously
try not to imagine anything at all. 

I wonder if you murmured the same scarlet words
under cover of covers and velvety blackness.

I wonder if your skin met theirs in just that way,
creating an electricity that I believed was just for me.

I wonder if I’ll just become another body in the back room.

The Coffeehouse

Steamed milk and cigarettes,
Macbook Pros and Airs,
coffee black and paperbacks,
and lies uttered so politely.

The coffeehouse is where we go
when we need to shed our skins,
to wash away the excess paints
and masks we carry so tightly.

Heartbreak coats the walls and floors,
sadness fills the arid air.
We drape ourselves in trench coats
with pockets of goodbyes whispered lightly.