I miss you. I’ll say it. There are certain days when the distant memories come back like a tidal wave & I see you- in small, those true lifelike moments- you crossing the yard. Your smile- the slight gap in the back of your jaw. You tattoos- arms tight around me.
If only I could stop seeing them as empty promises now.
My, how I loved you.
If only I could forgive myself for being so gullible. Trusting.
There’s nothing like that left in this world.
“And is it strange,” I asked my roommate yesterday, sitting stoned on the barstool, in the middle of this kitchen in the house that I bought after I left you. How you hated me for it. Hated me for any kind of happiness after you. “Is it strange that I still feel odd without wearing a ring on my finger?”
I looked at my hands and thought of the darkness. The way you’d demanded the ring back-‐ how we’d fought over it so many days prior. Finally I left it in an envelope. You pawned it the next day.
For a bottle of Makers Mark, you’d said.
I drove past our old apartment the other night. It was a typical night. Autumn, leaves falling around, getting dark earlier. Sun was almost down and there was a light on in our old bedroom. I had to do a double take. Your truck wasn’t in that parking lot anymore. So many bad memories. It’s like trying to extinguish some
kind of cancerous growth on your heart, this kind of changing.
November 3rd, 2011