It’s not breaking off the tooth, it’s the living

with the exposed root. You are gone. You are

gone. I know that the rain is still falling,

that the earth is still sublime, that the star

I named you for is still out there, somewhere.

It’s this morbid time, time on my hands, time

to think that I can drink away despair,

fuck away all this pain. Time for sublime

errors in judgment. Pain will be the death

of me but what does pain prove? They still move:

the rain, the earth, the stars, all that must part

must part. I held you. You took your last breath.

You are gone. Let this long sober pain prove

that I love you, little blessing, dear heart —