One of these days I will be standing on your porch,
Facing a you with one of these babies in hand.
On that day, it will be my nape you see last
As by then you will have learned
Not to look into my eyes.

The memory you will salvage as you close the door of our tryst won’t be
         that time we bought the tube at a gas station with some Dr. Pepper,
Nor the forever we disproved in the name of circumstance,
                    Nor the never-ending ending,
               the looking like the bad guy, and the
          what-always-happens.

No -
what you’ll remember most with that tube of what-used-to-be chapstick
          Is the feeling of pretty pink petrolatum over the seams of your lips,
               The every time you didn’t pop the slippery white cap off,
                    The 23 flavors of us and then one,
               And the trembling, the ever so slightly and off-key apologetic,
          At the lingering taste of a something you yourself didn’t finish.