make believe

remember that game we used to play?

the one where whoever makes the smallest version of me wins?

how stiff the competition was between your re-inhaled breaths

& newly clenched teeth

& fists shoved in your pockets

versus my own ventriloquist act,

my own purge,

my own zippered shut butterfly kisses.

remember the time I played Samson

& you, Delilah?

the evening in my Bed Stuy bathroom when you took the clippers to my skull

& showed me how you would have created me in your image

& not God’s

if only I were a better listener

a better painter

a more talented contortionist.

& remember when we played house

& zombies simultaneously

do you remember when we played apocalypse house as the meteors fell past the open windows

& the war drums replaced our ear drums

& the locusts swarmed our tummies?

I’ll play father

& you the eldest daughter

(because you can’t seem to muster the nurture required to play mother)

& then disappear with such natural progression like you flee the nest for university

leaving behind empty bedrooms

& dust collections

& slightly ajar doors

leaving behind cookie crumbs

& peeling wallpaper

& a leaking faucet

leaving behind me to do the baking

& the painting

& the plumbing

& the reconstructing of walls like I myself am a Habitat for Humanity project

like I myself am nothing more than another failed hobby,

an excursion you took while on the way to your real life,

real future

real love.

like I was the game you were playing all along.