This is not a sedated apology for my nyquilized reaction times or a numb confession
It is only a white-washed glimpse of your ex that texts you, “hey-hope you’re doing well” WELL maybe
It is the recognition that we have all been that ex or that friend that makes up excuses for not having time to see you lately, lately meaning always
(sometimes you pretend you are in a video game to control the actions of people that so graciously never seem to falter in affection in fiction).
This is not a band aid for your constant complaints or a “How-to” self-help book
but instead an elucidation that this world is not an arrow searching for a target.
It is a mother probing her purse for loose change so that her son can buy an impromptu ice cream cone on their Sunday stroll
You are trying to find the words to describe an act so beautiful
but there are no words to designate to a metaphor told by a person you once called home.
This is not a sonnet to my lost lover
but the telling of the lover, the way she cramps up today like a dried up sponge when you turn away, or the denial of the way that you YOU clench the world in your fist like a sponge
needing to be emptied.
This is not an excuse for leaving when I say “I’m sorry.” No,
It is the things I want to, like “Today the world sounds like the buzzing inside my ears when I cannot fall asleep, the sigh of a starving child’s last goodbye.”
It is the way you would respond
“Don’t be so dark, baby”.
This is not yet another grievance of endless sprinklers turned on in the rain, of what we never had, or a call for the revolution that you just can’t care about,
This is my heart oozing in reflection, the way you feel when you hold a pill, palms sweaty.

5/21/12