By Amanda Hayes

I wish a part of me

could forget the art of you,

wash away the memories

you canvassed on my lips

and the way you spray painted

my thighs, simply wipe away

the paint you stained

down through my hips.

Three years elapse

and I painfully grasp

the notion of you

still, I can feel the ink bleeding

from your pen onto my skin,

I can see you smiling at me

the way I photographed you

in my hippocampus.

Like black and white film

you are captured in my temporal lobes,

a memory that never seems to disintegrate.

You pinned me up against your wall

like a masterpiece,

when the paint was gloss

and it was gold,

but when it dried

you left me hanging

onto hope.

I watched you sleep

when we never slept,

then I awakened and reached

for the sheets

and you were not there.

In this slow coldness,

you are the condensation

mist of the aerosol can

you carried, illustrating

our unfinished romance.