It would take me 230 hours to walk from the spot
where you first told me you'd like to be my partner
to the place where,
nearly eight months later,
you apologized
for breaking my heart.

Two-hundred and thirty hours.

According to my calculations,
which I etched in my new writing pad,
I have one-hundred and one poems left until I reach my total.

If I write a poem each day,
it will take me almost three-and-a-half more months
before your vision
is faded from my memory, and by that time
it will almost be December
when your birthday falls,
and I'll have to start over.

And that time is not counting
old photographs re-surfacing,
the pain of knowing I've been erased,
or chance encounters on our campus, see

I have been eliminated twice now
by women who I have loved like nothing else
and I'm beginning to fear
that something is wrong with my love, that I am too potent
or terrifying
to have success.

I want someone to leave me,
and leave me well; I want to be able to call them
when I am sick, or alone, or dying of desperation,
when I have lost my home or someone in my family,
and vice versa.

I want someone to feel the same small attachment and desire
to still cultivate my well-being
as I do
for those whose voices I no longer hear in my sleep.