Why I was blue today?
Pinpricks of distance widen
With the innocuous email notification
That a shared account has now been deleted
Deleted
Another dissolved link
In the feeble, fragile friendship
A tidying of our electronic trail
That I can barely protest
So I don’t.
I stare at the picture you sent
Where both faces share the same smile
Except that the person next to you
Was not me
I try to discern some falseness
in your bright grin
but I fail
so I put my phone away.
I listen and laugh too loudly
as he re-enacts the conversation he had
when he dined with you yesterday
He mimics the rise and fall of your phrases
So so well
Complete with your light, airy gestures
It is incredibly funny and strange
how I can hear your voice
so clearly through his
And I laugh and enjoy your company
And try to be content
Though it is twice removed.
I was blue today
from holding my breath
because I could not be with you
nor stay with you
nor be rightfully angry that
I could not be with you.
I release my breath
that I can no longer hold
Bottling up my sighs of longing
And add the mason jar to the growing shelf
They writhe painfully
(Or dance prettily)
in their glassy prisons
Waiting for the day that you’d come
And smash them into freedom
We’d dance, intoxicated by hopeful breaths
(And the unspoken whispers, and the unkissed kisses)
Which would swell into a full-force tempest
And sweep us up in a perfect hurricane
of love that had been put away
But until then, I put on the lid,
Label and date it
with little dried baby breaths
Seal it with the only kiss I can give
Clutch it to my chest and let it throb there
It struggles against my ribcage
Glass on bone
And then,
I set it down.
