Shelf-life

by Paige Cober

he breathes:

i love you like i love those nights
where it's cool but still too warm
to leave the covers on
when you sleep,
and you can't sleep
over the sound of
black and white re-runs
you leave on your TV,
the laugh-track
like little people
rattling in your brain
when you close your eyes,
so you open them 
to see this woman with short
curly blonde hair, with porcelain skin
the color of china in moonlight,
her eyes the kind of eyes
that look like liquid glass,
her dress
riding high on her thighs,
showing just enough skin where
it's not her
that reminds me of you,
but the way she sleeps
when she knows i'm awake,
but the way her skin
brushes mine like the contours
of a shadow, her fingers cold
and clammy like autumn leaves,
but the way her eyes look at me
like they're not glass, but i am 
and her lips--
open like books--
--but i cannot say
anything
right
and i crumble my words
and let them fall to the floor
before the watchful eyes
of your bed. 
in reality,
i will only wake
in the morning,
and i will only feel
the bed groan under your ghostly weight
in the darkness,
and my bookshelf
a contour of shadows
over my pillow.

Paige is a writer who lives just outside of New York City, between a prison, train station and a cemetery. She enjoys iced coffee, sleeping and Saturday morning cartoons.