A poem I forgot along with a feeling…

I recently saw my ex again. It went exactly how I thought it would. Wonderful, sexy weekend--no break through. The fear is still there. The hesitation in our eyes. We were college lovers, constantly trying to navigate our shifting selves along with travel and friends. When he left it was calm. I was calm. I knew we had done all we could. I lay down in the space between us and did not get up for many months. I let myself soak up the fact that I had loved. It was like an alpenglow that warmed me for months, reminding me I could love despite my choice to be sad and alone. It felt sacred. I slowly found that love in myself again. I slowly started doing more art. I started climbing, dancing, biking. She reemerged. Changed, shedding the skin that he had touched and loved and cried over but that now no longer fit.

Now two years later, the space was still there. Sacred as ever. And yet, now that we are both here, it is full. Full of us in the way light can fill a room. We stand at opposite sides of the room, fearing what we would touch if we were to make it smaller, the space between us.

Fall 2016:

There is a line

Across my hair

Where I died it last fall.

I flip my hair over my face in the shower

And stare at the place

Where dirty blond turns to silver.

I see time in the darker strands being spun from my scalp.

Almost twelve inches have past

Since we met.

I watch the water run down my hair

Making it silky and soft.

It has not been that smooth—

Time without you.