They say every seven to ten years you replace all your cells
you shed your skin like a snake, in the night, making dust

these dust motes swirl, a swirling in mourning of stirring,
light filters through glasses on a table, in another's home.

I think of you often, and now, presently, I lie wondering
if you are okay. If you will be okay, if you love me still.

I wonder how badly I broke your heart, and if I will feel it
echoing, if and when you cry out, for me, from little sleep.

I wonder if you will remember my name as good, as clean,
and whole in your mind, untarnished by devoted cynicism

I wonder when we meet for coffee, if you will ask me back,
I wonder what I will say. We said we would meet, will we?

Should we? Would it help us with anything? Will it hurt?
I'm afraid if you hear one word from me, you will unravel

like a spool of film, with you going over and over and over
every memory and analyzing what happened where, when.

I can't tell you where I stopped loving you. I remember one
night, and many of them, each all unforgettable secrets, that

I will tell to my own daughters, maybe, if I am so lucky, of
when we saw the shooting California stars. They were ours.

But, I will not tell them about the night we spent together,
you watched as I cried clutching--scarring--skin with nails,

you didn't know what to do. And then we ran out of things,
and I didn't know if I liked you, or even if I liked me, really.

But, I still hear you, sometimes, with a ripped and raw voice,
that screamed, like an animal, that you only wanted me! No!

I didn't know what I wanted, but, I knew I couldn't stay,
that is how I felt, after so long, with the city impending,

pressingly. I felt forced to stay. I left because I couldn't.
I left you, alone, because I didn't know if I wanted you.

I wanted what I have now. I wanted art. I wanted the city.
I wanted new boys, girls, drinking, laughing, and kissing.

I wanted to know the taste of others that weren't you, and
what it felt like to truly be unsafe, alone, and dependent

on nothing but my own wits, gumption, and self esteem,
I have it. It is rough, but it is more worth it to me to know.

I remember all the weekends in bed, sweetly spent tucked
in the crook of your shoulder, the smell of your neck, us all

talking and laughing, enamored with each other and feeling
of love and euphoria. We'd tell each other our futures, and

we said we'd meet in Paris in ten years, laughing bitterly at
what we all know; that our relationship will come to an end.

That's the thing about first loves, that you are sure of an end.
You were a better man to me than others, that I know surely.

I did not need the roughness of a cruel person to know it then,
and having felt the cruelness of others, I know the real sounds.

But I do not think I can return to you, and be the same woman
that you once wanted, needed, and saw. I am just not the same.

Something in me grows, feverishly, and maybe we will meet,
but I am moving fervently, and too quickly for your nostalgia.

You would be chasing a whiff from a stale perfume bottle,
and a wisp of a will that is just barely out of longing reach.

So my question is, still, will we ever meet again, and if so,
where and when will we each be, and will you want a we?