Escaping Narcissus

ii.
there are no explanations, none worthy
of your contortionist spine and
sky-hungry hands, no sorrow;

this is the happy song for the happy people:
raise your paper heart to the heavens

  [I wish god would take pity on me
  and flood the abomination right out of my
  skin, drown the impure, start new

  with a dove that doesn’t know
  my name]

i.
in my head,
I’ve already left you a thousand times over.
sometimes, I wander through the streets and
idolize the living like a curious phantom
with a nonexistent pulse; sometimes, I run
desperate to the woods that seem
to breathe and mourn, where the trees
resemble bodies of people weaker than me,
and sometimes, I fly away because it turns out
the needles nestling beneath my skin
were feathers, waiting to cry out, and
I watch as your shadow dissolves
into the unsympathetic
night

but every time,
I come back, crawl into our weary bedsheets,
and number off your breaths until I fall
asleep.