Laying Down and Underpainting

She called our love kitsch

From the 17th floor

Williamsburg high rise

Overlooking homeless in the park

Under dressed and over exposed

Was I kidding her or just killing myself?

Fascinated by her manic beauty

As she tore apart the morning in disguise

Throwing fits of rage like I’d paper in a bin

Stripping away my senses like her past

It wasn’t as much a choice as it was survival

Leaving her lust like the vanilla

She tasted on my ghost

While laying down the underpainting

For her latest masterpiece in loss

the slow melancholia of twilight

We can no longer create each other

in the likeness of ourselves. But

we still can love who we’ve dreamed

warm under covers,

in the slow melancholia of twilight.

Though separate, still a part

painting one another’s shadow —

an impression all our own.