An Ode to the Saint of Sink.

Evening lays flat like dishcloth wrung out and flung

across the windowsill of our fifth-floor cell,

this apartment is a box of silence and leftover pasta.

You are a cathedral of chaos in your boyfriend's hoodie,

your mascara is a seismograph for the end of better times.

I recite to you.

–Oh love, like a moth trapped in the lamp of my ribcage,

frenzied with want,

your voice is the moon's voicemail I listen to on loop–

and you,

God bless your unholy soul,

clutch the toilet like it's your last romantic partner.

The sink is judging me.

Your stomach is staging a rebellion with sirens.

And still I speak.

Still, I love.

Because what is poetry

if not declaring beauty in the eye of your lover

as she blurts up vodka-soaked sonnets into a ceramic altar?

You hurl, and I hurrah.

You gag, and I gasp–

for inspiration, not air,

because darling, I swear, your convulsions

have more rhythm than most open mic nights.

"I wrote this next one in the shape of your spine," I say,

as you groan like a haunted accordion.

I adjust the dimmer switch to mood lighting–

because if you're going to vomit through my metaphors,

let it be in a golden haze.

I do not flinch.

Not when your bile baptizes the bath mat.

Not when you curse god, me, the bottle, and the year 2020.

You are a Rimbaud with a hangover,

a Venus with a stomach flu,

and I'm your court fool,

gathering the pearls you drop between retches.

I whisper a haiku into your armpit:

soft skin, sharp perfume

love waits by the open door

you belch, I believe–

And when you look up–

eyes rimmed in regret and salt–

and say.

"Please, for the love of God, shut up,"

I laugh, quietly.

Not because it's funny.

But because it's the first thing you've said to me tonight.

I pause.

Just long enough to notice that you don't mean it cruelly.

Just long enough to wonder

if this is the closest you'll come

to saying you're scared.

That you're tired of being loved

through the fog,

when you can barely love yourself–

especially like this.

I bow,

to your mess, your miracle,

your midnight sermons of bile and brilliance,

humbled by your mercy.

Still, I speak.

Still, I love.

And the silence you give me in return–

that, too,

is poetry.