“what is left”

ohgd:

the world’s been ending for three years now and i’m

tired of the desert like their eyes or this blank page.

in another universe, a boy asks: can you cough red

ghosts? a girl answers with a mouthful of pills

soaked in stomach acid. a forked path: she died/

didn’t; split into complements, into her own other half,

the postcard you must always think of but never send

or receive. what is left is the black hole, is the particles

spit out by the black hole, how we know i was once

both you and the orchids you left on the windowsill

of her hospital room. it doesn’t make a difference.

three years and still swallowing the spit of seventeen-

year-old boys; here’s where i ask what this body is,

exactly – how do i know you survived? how do i know

you didn’t, that this is just what you left behind?