you have entered the realm of life after separation.
gone are the daisies she tucked behind your ears. it’s autumn now.
you are getting older. your boots are heavy and your chest is heavier.
you were given something gleaming, but it isn’t yours,
anymore. you seethe in your own ache.
this is your first silver october. the blushing leaves have gone greyscale,
like an i love lucy rerun. they evoke a stab of grief between your lungs.
you have to rewrite the story of your life now,
go forward knowing that everything after will be somehow
lesser than her. no person will reach into you the way she did.
you are a lost girl. resignation is all you have left,
resignation and streets bitter with dead leaves, streets where you run and shout
a silent prayer of loss.

but then:
but then.

you are reciting a poem for a room of people and your words
belong to your body now. a deep glow has fallen over everything,
right onto a girl you’ve only seen once before.
front row. face open. taking in what you are saying,
your retrospective sorrow, with a particular kind of attentiveness
you have needed all along.
everyone is listening, but she is hearing you.
in that moment, when you are raw and earnest,
you think that perhaps there’s something different about
this one. how even when you are done, she still seems to be
hearing all the words you cannot say.

and then:
and then.

spring is thrusting its way out of cold dirt
and you are twisting and breathing and this girl,
this girl, she is one million ******* shades of red. all you can do is
look at her without turning away, as if you could do such a thing
even if you tried. maybe this is how rembrandt felt
when painting night watch.
full of thick, rich burning too immense for language to hold.
this girl, this girl in the midst of life after. this girl so good
she’s put meaning back into the messy coming of spring.

you have learned not to trust. not to believe.
to love with a window open, a hand on the door,
in case of incineration, ready to run.
but this girl, says your heart,
says the peachy light bleeding onto her lips and nose,
this girl is not like those who came before her.
you’ve been a stranger to yourself for so long, but this girl
is reintroducing the two of you, rubbing you raw with longing.
do you understand, you want to say to her,
how stunning you are.
standing there like that. in your sincerity and laughter, as it weren’t
breath snatching to witness. as if it were commonplace,
unexceptional. as if you weren’t the tenderest work of art.

do you.