I can see you walking
from a mile away
head down
speedy Gonzales
your body
a well oiled machine
better with age
better without
the violence

my beautiful sinking ship,
are you proud of me yet?

we broke up the first
time
the same week that
modest mouse
released their fourth album

it was called
‘good news for people who love bad news’
we were dissapointed

I listened to it ironically
while you booked a one-way
back to Colorado

an airplane instead of a
greyhound bus

I wrote
you a tear streaked letter
in my step mother’s office
in between piles of unopened mail
green ink dripping
off a yellow
legal pad

I followed
you, a crippled baby duck
enthusiastically
humiliated
vacillating between
bowed repentance and
animal screams

the illusion
of power
drained out of me
with surgical
precision

blood letting
it turned out
was your favorite sport

I get so dramatic in
hindsight

…

“stop thinking
love
is like a game of
chess”

I’ve been told this
more than once
but never by you

it makes the space
behind my eyeballs ache

all the time
we wasted
on
opposite sides of
the table

better apart for sure
but still

I finally understand
the annoying chess
metaphor
I learned this
by watching someone else
be in love
and talk in love
and do in love
and care in love
and care-less in love
and hurt in love
and disintegrate into nothingness
without it

always the bridesmaid
too smart for the ritual
that’s my conclusion

a flash of sunlight splinters
the train derails
and I see
it isn’t you
walking towards me

this time