After You

I.

After you,
I abstained.

I quit drinking.
I quit those little puffs
of dizzying smoke.

Ate less decadently
no mid week
filet mignon.

After you,
I started working out,
stressing and
stretching my body
in new ways.

I stayed in more
read more
was alone
more.

Never once woke up
with a pounding regret
that came from
little gin cocktails
and $100 bar tabs.

After you,
I became a monk
a priestess
a goddess.

II.

After you,
I stopped writing.

I put down the pen
and the paper.

Not a single word
left my hands.

And all the journals I keep
at the bottom of purses
stayed there
rolling around
when I dug around for keys
and chapstick
and my cell phone
that you stopped calling me on.

The papers crumbled
up on themselves
collected coffee stains
and half thought out grocery lists
as if the reminder to buy coffee
could lead me out of a drought.

I almost threw them away
those half empty journals
believing that was it,
that 16 years of stringing
little moments
pieces of memory
carefully
and not so carefully
crafted lines
had come to
its inevitable end.

After you,
I had to learn
it wasn’t the after you
that was the drought
but the you.

After you
I had to rehydrate
photosynthesize
until I became
a flood again.

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