Everything I Thought I’d Miss Before You Left

Once upon a time, on the precipice of a sacred Eastern journey, I wrote you a love letter.

I wrote that I would miss:

The audible rhythm of your breath. The way it sounds like you’re about to say something, always. I wrote that I’m listening, always.

I wrote that I would miss:

The subtlety in your pleasure. The sacredness with which you guard your truth. The momentary glimpses in your holiness that expose you in all of your unbounded divinity. All of the universes that combust spontaneously within me in your company.

I wrote that I would miss:

The scrutiny I endure at your hands. The gentle slips towards utter madness. The disease that plagues me in the process of being untethered. The rawness that pluses from my center, born from this cosmic fit. It is here that I am revealed – and who is this woman? The mirror you hold up before me and the crashes into it that leave me bloodied. I will miss that.

I wrote that I wouldn’t miss gasping for air – because – irrelevant is the geography of your grip. I would still be gasping for air.

And then you left.

I did not miss:

The spot in your harem that you collect like trophies that serve as the shiny things distracting us all from seeing
that the mantel
is about
to collapse.

I did not miss:

The trembling of my bones as the corner got closer but I’d never get any safer and as your bear became grizzly – I was not put on this planet in this banging suit of a woman
of all divine things,
to identify with a rabbit becoming prey.

I did not miss:

Searching for my voice like I child in the dark who wakes from a nightmare only to find that they can’t put any sound to their screams. Because my word, is gospel and the truth sings, unbounded,
and I never
needed your permission
to let my voice me heard.

I did not miss:

Crashing into the mirror and seeing blood. You did not take the mirror with you when you left and as it turns out, I can see more clearly when your hot breath isn’t my ear and my reflection appears with such salience when I wipe the fog clean.

So yes, I missed, the primal nature of the sounds you make and yes I missed their guttural origin as they vibrate in your throat and yes I missed gasping for air but I did not miss searching for my own sounds and I did not miss how you, never, ever, let me finish or how you never, ever, let me finish.

It is here, that I am revealed. Irrelevant is the geography of your grip – I am no longer gasping for air.