The last night we were officially in love, the evening the carousel
was out of order

I watched it spin again and again
without any lights or sound, pleading with god to
make me one of the great pegasus forms illuminated by moon
and fake snow.

It would not have mattered,
my feet would have still been bolted to the December floor
a hundred miles, then another, then another

from you. I realize now that it would not have mattered if I had a
pair of wings, I still would have
never made it to you
(but I believed it then). Ungloved to dabble in hot cocoa,
my ten fingers dialed you:
I pretended to have seen real snow, you pretended to love me.

Yesterday, I felt like you
for the first time since I wanted anything to do with you,
remembering the final time you said you loved me. I was there
in the same body that phoned you in winter

watching a broken carousel circle again and again, I was
approximately two inches from
where I stood when you told me goodnight

(and you meant it, where I said goodbye, and I meant it more)
but I had forgotten the moment. Yesterday

I learned I can forget you as easily as you
had me. Remembering us mattered so little that I climbed on the
carousel, tasted the bubblegum lights
hummed to an ice cream truck song, and
declared it the last day I would ever officially think of you,
the morning the merry-go-round did not need the sun anymore.