One Year

Time has certainly passed.

I stubbed my toe today, and it felt worse than this, it’s broken, it’s blue, it’s numbing, it’s dulling, maybe I’m magic and fixed and evil enough to forget, maybe I’m counting on my fingers and toes to get through this Friday

I eat teflon every time I think of you just to fight off the next time and the next and the next

I rewire voodoo dolls and send them to your last known address, I hear creatures in my attic and hope you’re trying to break in

I have stopped inviting you into my bed and I do everything I can to emulate the way I’ve changed since you left

No one wants new because it is a lie, it looks like a cracked mosaic with Elmer’s glue dripping desperately

Everyone can tell someone has been here before to hold my hand through it

I am the weird one again, I am someone who lives in between walls, in sputtering static

My frat boy neighbors were the only ones to hear me cry in October and no one held their fingertips against the plaster

I’ve been given second chances by every bird flitting past, by leaves that fall anyway, by assassins trained to kill

Everyone but the man who used to donate my organs, eat my psalms, collect my rain with his jaws

I found something wretched

I strangled it cold, I dug up worms to unearth, I wrote it all down to give to you

If there was a purpose less than winning and fame, I guess it would be you

I guess that was always the kicker, wasn’t it?

Wasn’t it?

I eat my breakfast at a table, I crack jokes with men in pressed suits, I don’t do shots of vodka unless forced, I practice everything in moderation, I make my bed once a week, I let others set the agenda, I say no with my tongue, and I mean it, I almost never say yes or more

And one more thing that’s changed

Today, I had to wonder what you were thinking about, if it crossed your mind, if you found your old train ticket stub, if you checked your watch, if you looked up at the clouds at all, whistled some tune of gratification, satisfaction, worry, embered anger or somber recognition

It’s nothing less than normal for the past 364, but it doesn’t get easier day by day

I liked your schedule, I liked living by your word even when I was disloyal to such a mouth

Dependable and selfish

Eager and cruel

Kicked and up

Beaten and unflinching

These things have not changed unless they have

I keep reminding myself it doesn’t matter either way, it all burns from the other end now

I forget everyday, I wake up surprised, I haven’t put my phone down since

I am a silly girl and you are the past

I look in windows and you bury your hatchet quietly

I spend my days eating crow and throwing parties

I write sad words and ask hard questions

I feel your absence in every announcement and I paint my nails anyways

I don’t like locking my door at night.

I don’t want anything to stop you when you finally make up your mind.