There’s a lull in conversation—

anyway, I realize I’ve been the only one talking—

and your arm is curled 

around my waist, but you’re not holding

me. I put my shirt on, borrow your lipstick,

and sit at your bedroom mirror

to paint my mouth like yours,

pretending a piece of your kiss still

lives in the pink. The red

of my cheeks has dulled to an empty blush.

I grab a cigarette from the pocket

of your jeans that are crumpled upon the carpet.

I place the damned thing between my teeth

and the flame accompanies my breath

with the only noise inside these walls.

With my pink lips around the perimeter,

I realize my kiss keeps you 

from missing her. 

You spin

from your stomach to your back,

staring at my silence. We both

watch the smoke from my fingers and mouth rise 

into nothing, slowly disappearing between my breaths

again and again and again.

You ask for a hit, so I sit 

near the indention of your bare hips

on the mattress and I place the unlit end

in your mouth. I lay beside you—

my own will against your indifferent stillness—

and place my empty hand

over your heartbeat. Though my body

is against your skin, there is a distance

between us, like a mouth that never closes:

I’m the trembling bottom lip bitten

by silence— a locked jaw that doesn’t want to let go.

You’re the unmoving upper lip,

only shifting when you’re hungry.

She’s the cigarette at our center:

keeping you warm,

but burning me. 

-Iris