He called me love.
But I don't think of him
I don't think about the smile in his eyes
or the way our thoughts used to play
without moving our mouths
I don't think about us tongue-tied and shy
or how hard we tried.

Because thinking about him makes the muscles in my face hurt from tension. Less emotion and memory and more physical pain
A blatant, stubborn refusal
to let myself go back to that place...

He called me Love
and I think we had a love affair
but I was only
halfway there

Now he's nothing
but
the echo of a ghost
on quiet, rainy, nights
like this