not even the sirens that scrape
at my window
can touch me now

i am blessed by an illness
without
cause or cure.

i have executed a plan
to collapse time
with these words.

meaning will exist only without

your body lingers on mine
like a shadow
your skin closing in

an apostrophe

punctuating the distance between us

a comma, lacing together pieces
of your absence

and you breathe in & out & in & out
here

where i feel the ellipsis…eclipse us.