you wanted to save this veined and speckled bar of soap from an unwashed mid-country gas station bathroom.

so

I followed you, or – maybe you followed it, I can’t still tell but it seems all those darkened bars and beds with seams paid for by the week; the nights we undulated and we ended with screams,

I never bothered to lather enough to wash it clean.

I brought you into cities where nothing gleamed white quite like alley steam, under threadbare sheets that didn’t fit, into midnights with nothing (left) to note, onto roads that did not know where they went.

I brought you inside something left behind, I thought of you in a room that wasn’t mine, I wanted you in the eyes that looked at me, I left you unannounced, but

I never wanted to lather enough to wash it clean.