Synonyms and closet libraries

We’ d been hanging books from coat hangers
for as long as I could remember
hiding all our desires in the closet
with the disaster recipes we promised
we’d never reminisce over
but always failed to learn from

There are rice crispies in my hair again
from sleeping on the floor
in front of the wintered oven
that cooks nothing more than body heat
in these subatomic temperatures
of our black-cut souls
and it’s a lonely place to lie
without you to curl around

You boxed all the CD’s
said they could read our minds
and laughed, momentarily distracted
when I asked you to try and lick your elbow
as I watched the glimmer of tin foiled bobby pins
in your matchstick hair

Life was like channel surfing static
a horror film run in reverse
everyone living in the end
after we’d kissed the reaper
and stitched our throats closed
just to speak one more dying lie

The truth always lay like a cushion
waiting to smother us in our sleep
the synesthesia of corded sound waves
into the rainbow synonyms
where we didn’t exist
and no longer do

I still keep my books on coat hangers

© Indie Adams 2014