Lorrie Ness

Codependency

It’s not the threat of fan blades
that stops the ceiling from reaching down,
but your panting in the dark that props these walls open.
Drawing in, then out—determined to find a way to breathe
with just one of the lungs in your chest.

You’re close to madness
knowing there’s a part of you that can’t be uncoupled—
every pink lobe blooming from a single stem
that funnels the air inside.

You tell me about the jungle,
how the night was made to perspire—
how you’re still winded from trying to outrun its stagnant air.
Laying with my leg draped across your knees,
I remind you

of the strangler fig—
how its body was a hollow cylinder
large enough for you to stand inside. How its body
still held the shape of its host tree, long after it rotted away.