its coming up on a year
a year without you
longer than I had with you to begin with
and I can say I don't think of you often
in passing more than anything
and i feel little about it

I know one day it will be my wedding day
someday, as lace cinches my waist and vows hover in the air,
as i get ready you’ll cross my mind
not from longing, just a glitch in memory’s muscle
curiosity killed the cat but I’ve been dead all my life
so I’ll wonder where life has taken you
and I’ll be glad I don’t know for sure, glad you’re not at the end of the altar waiting for me
and maybe I’ll have the children I would never have been able to have with you
and they’ll like poetry, and I’ll think of you again
I’ll teach my boy to not act the way you did, the way I hope by then you don't either

I’ve come to accept that thinking of you will happen
you shaped me as a person and six months can hold a lot of weight, turns out
I’ve stopped worrying about subconscious meanings
I think of you not because you still hurt me, not because I’ve not moved on
I think of you the way i do about those mornings when I was seven and watched the tv all alone  just to let time pass
in the way i think about that one mean girl from middle school, or that pretty girl from high school
in the way i think about my grandpa, the memories few and blurry and probably half made up
in the way i think about my first job, a lesson of bitter taste followed by so much better
in the way i think about every other boy that came and hurt and went