november 2

 i lost you some

                        where

in the fog between last winter and this summer

i reach for you, but my grasp falls

                                                        short

rushing, arms flailing, i keep pulling in the rope that

once tied me fast to

                               you

when i reach the end it's

                                                               cut

your silhouette ripples out of my

view and i'm left with no good goodbye and only a crumpled heart

i screamed in his arms

when you left your hard bitten words in my hands

as if every single year we had meant nothing to you

i'm alone      i tried to scratch out every untruth in the absence

joseph, continuous in my head

                                                              no, you're not

it's been months

since

propinquity.

i smooth out the crinkles in my crumpled heart. it looks better than it did in august,

but there is no erasing 

the canyons that agony carves.

altruism peeks out from the crevices. not spirit of my flesh,

but flesh of the Spirit, coming to mend the fissures 

brought by wreckage.

in my memory, i am speaking, yet all i see is my moving mouth.

like those childhood nightmares, it is 

silent.

requital has become a lost art. although, maybe i was chasing after things that had already departed.

did your farewell disappear into the void? did i sweep it away without notice?

was it voiced to me, yet went over my head?

this misunderstanding cuts into my pharynx on the way down.

i taste fresh blood any time i dwell upon this

unclosed case.

how do you love when you're supposed to let go of love?

/x