one-way street

tonight the streets are clean
enough for the traffic lights to change for no one
and i cannot help but wonder how your voice sounds in love
heart racing the indicator of a red sedan
bright enough to burn the flames cold

now we are in the same city again and last time you swore
that meant a second chance for us to make it right
but that was before you held her hand on the drive home
her body proving close enough to hear without speaking
how easily the pillow learns to memorise another skull

i crack open my chest and instead of a heart there is a car
sinking in a river with water flooding the shape of your name
there is drowning in every vein
but the breathlessness feels so familiar
when my body is on your receiving end

say the end of the road was always meant to drive like this
two copies of the same polaroid, one in a four-year landfill
the other pressed between lungs like a beating heart
because if it was always going to be like this
maybe i was never to blame