to pry her mind off her simplistic brooding
he tells her she's full of garbage
and she knows how right he is
when he says he's felt her own emotions
more deeply than she.

what right would she ever have
to go over the head of one so wise
and well-versed in the dances
of grotesque self-deprecation?
he was a grand master, adorned
with championship scars for first-place medallions.

she was subjugated entirely by his words.
his love cut her off at the knees.

how could she complain
when the sum of her suffering would always be less
than the grandness of psychosis he could,
with a crack of knuckles, inflict upon himself?
never afraid to do so,
perhaps he would show her how.

he knew everything. he knew everything
except, perhaps, the world of hurt he would cause her
if ever he forced her
to watch him shut himself up
in the house, alone with a blue-black shellac
lover of his vacancies;
alone with his favourite disease.

her fingers tangled with themselves.
his breath, imagined on her arms,
kept her silent.