to not experience absence if you do;
this phantom limb of a love affair.
The object is to slow the breathing, the blood,
to stay still, tepid, rational;
The breath runs fast because I am your lover, or
lately, because I am not.
The object is to teach the body to forget what kissing is like,
to forget a smell, the brush of a specific skin;
to become a man who doesn’t know you,
to become a man who sleeps when it’s dark.
