Built on sand.

You said:
"I woke up when you left.
Not at the sound of the door,
but at the feeling of your having gone."
I said:
"If you were a tent,
I would drive all of your posts into my body
So you would stay beside me"
And I felt your chest empty;
sighs pull you deeper into the bed
and my lungs become places where I store you.

When you were here, your body moved around me like sand:
weaving its way in between my fingers and legs.
Your wholeness was cut up into tiny smallness
that I could bury myself inside. Beneath.
You found your way to curl into every cranny of me.

When you left, I found myself, in spots, eroded.
small spaces, new coves in my bones,
  places where the sands had scraped.
  Grinding in my insides, Like how the ocean can make pockets out of stones,
Somehow, you carved out shelves inside me,
made a lovelier dwelling of such a grateful cave.

Now you're gone I find myself a room of empty shelves.
I say:
"What used to live here? In this cavity I have never seen inside me?"
and I tell myself that the answer is
"Lamps. Coal. Jars of earth. A terrarium. Keys."
And so I fill each empty place with feathers and spices,
ceder, sweetgrass, sage.
I say: "How clever that I have made shelves for such things"

You said:
"When you try to leave me,
I will refuse to let you go.
I will always have your warmth beside me."
I said:
"When I leave,
I will fill the place of your warmth
With lamps, coal, spices, and a fireplace made of Independence.
I suggest you do the same".

  And when I wake up at night,
I look at all the places I've filled inside me
Where you, small, invasive sand, used to live.
And the sound your your being gone keeps me awake.