I could cry making love to her, said he about me. He took me
through the countryside where he endured and at times, enjoyed
life as a child, met his father; surprisingly winsome and caring.

Showed me the clearing where dreams of wedding vows reside,
wildflowers and sunlight and the smell of the wind. Said he could
not wait to kiss me inside the threshold of his new house, could

not wait to make love to me on the new bed that he bought to
contain the exclusive bonds of our two bodies. He said time and
constancy would prove his devotion

I am here.
I am not going anywhere, said he to me.

I scanned my instincts and found incredulous peace, my own disbelief
was the only recognizable fear, and a reason NOT to be happy would
need to be birthed by ignorant spontaneous invention. I felt beautiful,

loved and secure, with laughter and poetry, singing and guitar,
tranquility and passion and rain on our first kiss, cooing Hey Jupiter.

Undone. My head is throbbing from smashing against the proverbial
windshield because he slammed on the brakes and slipped every
thing about me into reverse tragedy has taken his mother away and

sisters and brother look to the eldest for help his 3 year old daughter
has just returned from Maine.

Too- much- at- once, he gasped, I am drowning! Take my hand
love, you are not alone, I will sit beside you, I won’t say a word.

But he wanted nothing of me from me or for me because my sea
colored towels recently hung in his bathroom have been speaking
auditory hallucinations “She has come to steal your autonomy” and

he felt shame for this, after all it was he who asked me to put my
toothbrush in his cabinet. No need to over-complicate; he thought
he wanted a relationship, until he remembered all the things he

can’t stand about relationships and now my form represents all
the things that [and] he cannot stand, and the face in the mirror
said to him “Don’t listen to the towels, you coward! You are afraid

of letting her down. Just let her down now, get it over with and
then you can pretend that she never happened.”
He listened to the mirror and to the towels and declared,

I am here.
I am not going anywhere.

Thus, he got rid of those ******* towels and the woman who
brought them into his house. Life is too hard to include you, said
he to me, just accept it; this has nothing to do with you.

Hey Jupiter, nothing’s been the same.