Elucidation

Untangling words is repulsive work
like removing your lover’s hair from your own hairbrush:
different textures, sometimes
  even different colors.
To wrap my fingers around something so temporary
is to lay myself bare to any lasting damage:
  promises turn brittle,
with or without repeated usage.
Stare in the mirror, and pretend it will all fade to grey;
such intimacy induces a cold tingle when I reach for the brush:
  Yes, I did want to move in
  Yes, I am sure, let me explain.

Sick Fuck

I’m suffocating in a bed of Kleenex
strewn like desiccated flowers
that crinkle at our touch. I shrink back,
look at your plaid shirt
as if it were a handkerchief: last resort.
The last time I got sick
I felt untied, alone with my bag
of honey lemon cough drops.
Now we are united in spasms and swelling.
Like teenagers we snicker:
Let’s get fucked up on cough syrup.
We pass the bottle until it’s empty,
and I want to write an ode to the red liquid
traveling to my stomach: no feeling.

Justin Holliday has been published in HelloHorror, Up the Staircase, The Adroit Journal,
and elsewhere.