I sketch you in Vivid Tangerine,
my Crayola memory frantic to get you down
before you’re gone again.

My therapist and you are at odds.
Treating OCD, she says, is about
desensitizing,
taking the power from the thought,
but you, the thought, are—

It’s like the scab on my lower lip
that every day, I wake and say
today, I will leave it alone
today, it will start to close

and then when I’m alone I crack it open
because the peel is satisfying, sure
but so is the pain itself,
and that’s the part I didn’t tell my therapist.

I think if I keep you surreal,
neon,
I can keep you a little longer.

I was wearing a sweatshirt with an embroidered bluejay on it when this stranger
whacked my shoulder with his hand
gestured behind me, meaning look back there
where a woman, about my age, sat idling at the stop sign
calling something to me that I couldn’t hear—
did I know her from somewhere? Had she been trying to say hello?
Had I dropped something on the crosswalk?

Confused, I turned back around
and the stranger flipped me off
continued walking briskly, hardly having broken his gait
though to me it had been a full minute since he’d touched me

I could hear the woman now, as I came back to myself
Are you all good? Ah, he wasn’t pointing to her, she was just where he was pointing
I was, but thank you so much for checking
She said he’d been following me so closely for a block
and she didn’t love the look of it
I could hardly hold my blossoming heart inside, straining against the bluejay
for her otherworldly kindness

I took a different route back to my apartment, in case he was waiting for me ahead
I scrutinized my corner for his dark sweatshirt and pale face
but fortunately
I remembered hers much better

I.

switching to lamps from the overhead has
warmed the room modestly
but it’s not what the fire once was
as I tighten my robe and eat the
cranberries from the sauce one by one
tv buzzing  


II.

I wanted to keep lightly tethered
ask you how you’re holding up, sometimes
take photos off the walls, but
move them to the basement, not the trash

but you insisted—and I oblige
no talking, no remembering
****, sorry
I forgot


III.

I end the year with hardened skin
on my left index finger
on my lower lip
on my heel
scratching until there's blood, and then
this is the resolution:
stop stop stop stop stop

it’s harder each time to take myself seriously when I promise

listen—
this is just the way it is

I see your headlights in the drive-thru
last winter
in the camera lens tonight

this is not personal, you said
you cried, thinking it was dark enough
voice steady (if you focused on the radio)
not personal, but permanent
and I was in no position to argue

lately, I haven’t had much that I’ve ached to tell you
—that feels a little personal—
and I only remember when certain angles of light
hit me like a freight train
after the sun goes down

sometimes I close my eyes
imagine I’m blind
shapes and light veiled, soft
day and night melting, overlapping
rain and sun both bright

words you said and hums you
may have made
I can’t remember, now
memory and vision criss-cross
past and daydream clasping hands

when I open them, you dissipate
each time I call you back
growing warmer

when I think about the color of my eyes
I think of blue-green
I think of gray, sometimes, when I’m feeling replaceable
I usually don’t think of the red
veins twisting through white
or the red veil covering all of it in the morning
when I blink awake
enervated by all the waking I did in the dark
instead of resting

when I think about the color of your eyes
if I’m being honest
I can’t remember what it was

dividing time by years made sense for the aztecs
they clocked the cycle had begun anew
the ice had melted just like before
they guessed—crossing all their fingers—
that it would again

walt whitman divided time by breaths
his line breaks echoing his full throat

cross-legged on new year’s morning,
I think that I don’t want to divide time at all
just one long hum
to keep the beat