We said goodbye after what
felt like just moments after
we had said hello,
for even though months
had passed,
we had both always done
our best not to
share too much.

Although I have gone to great lengths
mastering how to be aloof,
in that moment I
regretted so much my inability
to emote.

"You make it seem so easy,"
he breathed,
his face welling with discontent,
and I kissed him on the cheek
as I whispered,
"I'm good at making things
look easy."

He had the sweetest demeanor,
and my body trembled
in the gentle strength and
aggressive tenderness with which
he kissed me,
a passionate, bittersweet
exchange, as we became aware
that it might be for the
last time.

I've become so good at
being alone that I had not
even pondered how I might
actually miss him
once he was gone.

I think my lack of visible reaction
hurt him, but I
couldn't bring myself to be
vulnerable, to let down
my guard and tell him
that knowing we were
parting ways made my
insides ache in the most
unexpected and terrifying way.

Maybe we weren't ever
meant to be anything;
that was my thought from
the jump.
But when he looked me in my eyes,
his heart was so pure,
and I yearned to touch
my soul to his.
I settled for combing my nails
through his curly hair
and murmuring sage words,
masking the things I refused
to feel.

He sent me on my way with
his favorite record, and I said
the most unscripted thing I ever had
to him,
that I'd always think of him
when it crackled and popped.

The kindness of what he extended to me,
the vulnerability I saw in his
beautiful, youthful eyes,
the way he softened his tough exterior,
it ate at me the whole drive home
as I cursed myself for being
so cold
and wishing I could kiss him
one last time.

I still haven't been able to
shed a tear, my heart too
frozen to thaw,
but as the Ray Charles
erupts from my speakers,
I stick to my word;
I think of him,
and I ponder on the possibilities
should we cross paths again.

Should that moment never come,
I can still find him
in the words of my poems
and hear him in the
rifts of his record, so I guess, for me,
it wasn't really
"goodbye."