a loose nail

your whispered words

float into my ears

small at first

just a seedling

but slowly they sprout

branching upwards

into my brain

there they dwell

pressing down

on my thoughts

like ivy

invading my consciousness

consuming me whole

you asked for honesty

and I lied

straight off the cuff

after revealing your hand

I changed mine

unsurprisingly

and so you withered

didn’t I write an elegy for you?

burn you on a funeral pyre 

and send you off

on a raft full of flowers

down the river?

I destroyed all the photos

every one

yet years later

you return

from beyond the grave

with your poisonous

words and questions

a shadow of your 

former self

tell me what you want

so I can either

let you slip back

into the misty marsh

with all my ghosts

or press you close

against my body

and warm your dead flesh