After years of silence, a silence I built
bone by bone around me,
not realizing what I was building
was a cage, you start to haunt me.
A tuft of blond hair disappearing
down an aisle at the grocery store
and suddenly I am crouching in the vegetable section
holding my breath like I am underwater,
my hand still clutching an onion.
I meet a friend at the reservoir and stop
short at the silhouette of a man
in all black with a sharp jaw. I turn around, palms
immediately sticky.
I tell myself: he is wearing sneakers. You would never
wear sneakers. For as long as I knew you,
you would wear only dirty brown boots
or rubbery orange Crocs
that I found hideous. After you,
I dated a man who wore Birkenstocks and socks,
and when I would look down and remember
his splayed feet the light would go out
between my legs. But it was never that way with you.
The orange Crocs, your dumb hungover face
chugging orange juice from the carton, puking
saffron bile into a metal bowl
next to our bed. It didnβt matter.
A searchlight
striping the blackened ocean. My body
circled yours like a seahorse. Did you know
they mate for life?
Did you know the males give birth? Father-birth
- you would have laughed at that. You pushing
out your bloated stomach after dinner. A balloon of skin
and bone and
air. Breath glittering
with tobacco.
The heat I felt for you never cooled.
You are still my emergency contact
on forms I never bothered
to update. It took years to peel you off my life.
Did you know anger
is only three shades of orange
away from lust?
