The trouble with writing a
relationship through technology
is that the bygones are never gone.
Why do I pour a drink in your absence
and settle to re-read our old fights, heartbreaks
like *********** lips parted, heart racing?
I shudder through those weeks where you petted me, darling
but could scarcely afford to feed me the same heart
being doggedly masticated in the maw of another
I trace over my retinas the lines where you didn't,
wouldn't, couldn't love me, they scan me
for my identity.
My mug shot, beside
hers.
After how little it meant, how can you possibly love me now?
I could edit these now, you know, you're able to do that.
Everything I wish I had been and said.
The pages left blank, I should've painted red.
In the spaces, hiatuses, I recall your ill-suited suitors
I can't tell whether I feel grief, jealousy, or ecstasy.
At the time, you know, it was like falling upon
The Secret Garden
unbefouled by poison nor passion
to inhale the heady scent of white rose
and discover the brim of someone else's hat beneath the foliage.
The place wasn't secret. Oh, it wasn't mine. Never ever was mine.
I'm ahead of myself. Oh, for want of technology.
We courted on Facebook and Gmail,
it was a convenient torture, given the circumstances.
Now my mate belongs where I do.
Loving, tenderly, wisely true.
I cannot start loading the page for the future
so much as delete our archive,
a prelude to love
written in diminished chords,
sung by the jilted and ghosts.