I’m sorry that the pencil I gave
you
to write out the list of how the day had wronged you
had a lead so soft it collapsed into the page
easy as an Odalisque I’m sorry you were
alone when it happened and that your skin
was purple, trying to right itself
on a sea that had taken inspiration from
the geography of a mall’s escalators
which is to say it did go up and down
but nowhere you could locate I was designed
to love but am sideways determined to lose
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