Swollen Youth

She became nothing after that
just dead weight,
the body of glances
and what she saw when she said his name.
It was no ghost, no Casper, no curtain
covered apparition in light weight sway
above candlelight, suspended in mid air.
It was heavy, the drooping visitor, the sag
under her eyelids, the slow drag under her feet.
In possession, this life she resurrected in her own body,
laying with him,
sweating him under tight curls,
wet with him next to her,
drowning for years in him,
she looked past me.
I was not the first.
She would have taken it for him,
snorted her own lines to bring him back to life,
stumbled him past his swollen youth,
muttered his name a thousand times so I could see him again
but I never did. I only hear him tell me—
I will not let you take this road.
Do you understand me declaring my death?
Yours will come later so she can die before you.