The message blinks white, fades to grey
and once again I’m left with only memories
of you, of us, of what you promised
you’d be for me
but you fell short—
you always do, don’t you?
And here I am, left
to pick up the pieces
to pretend I wasn’t tongue-tied, hopeful
for the kiss that wouldn’t come.
I never felt
so high and so low with one person,
could never wrap my head around the emotion
enigmatic and wild, like I was dreaming—
was that all we were? Just dizzy,
floating like clouds through what we claimed was love?
You send me fragments,
choppy texts with encrypted messages.
I read them over and over before I fall asleep
wondering what you meant in lack
of punctuation, in the empty spaces—
why is there always emptiness
when it comes to you?
You send me pictures with no captions,
a photo that makes you laugh, reminds you of me
and here I am, counting cracks on my ceiling,
trying to remember what I could have possibly meant
to a man who could never outright tell me he needed me.
A man who could never board that plane, take that flight,
drive with the tank on empty, reckless, desperate
to hold me in his arms just one more time.
And so we do this thing we do—
text messages through cyber space, impersonal
withdrawn. You waiting for an answer
and my screen flashing white.
And maybe this is how we’re supposed to end.
My screen blinking in the darkness of my bedroom,
but this time I don’t reply.