When you and Matt married on my birthday
I thought the disappearing act would end
No need to track you by scent
(More accurate than your last address)
Today’s fragrant warming breeze hurts me
Laughs like a parent at my naïve hope
That so many Junes, Julys, Augusts
Could carry into other seasons
Why shouldn’t they? We’d giggled and mourned and sung outrageously
Long before I pushed Matt towards you on that dance floor
Concrete dorm rooms took on life every summer
With literary cartoons and the scent of flowered soap
Your writing assignments, my activity lists
Convenient excuses to find each other each year
Across the where, when, and how of our other lives
Now, you hide while I keep seeking
Every time I unearth you
You profess remorse for your silence
Then impose it again and again
I sidle towards the exit, tired of playing
I pause to look back in case I missed your call
My neck growing stiff as I listen
In the space between each breath out —
breath in —
I grieve
My body has memorized loss
If I let go, I’ll bleed
But if I don’t, suffocation
I don’t expect a simple
ON
or
OFF
But this permanent
WAIT – – – –
Keeps me from exhaling
No air to speak goodbye
I shuffle through this year’s tide of christmas cards
Always one last chance (kicked puppy)
Maybe it’ll be different (alcoholic’s wife)
But hope is not friendship
And loyalty deserves more than a shake of the head
You are the only person
For whom I have been Muse
Your words hang in the hall, proof
Our trip to Walden Pond distilled into myth and metaphor
You swore you saw Orion that summer night
As our naked bodies drifted and shivered
(You always make me want to believe the impossible)
This poem to you was likewise
Supposed to work magic
On me
Lines wrapped securely around my torso
To pry my embrace from the past and hoist me to safety
I bruise myself against them
Straining with arms still extended
They snap and slice my flesh
And the truth is —
I’d welcome you back in an instant.
