i ask if she can stay a while
and she whispers that it is her time to go
seems like it's always time to move on
and into a new direction
i've painted a picture that doesn't quite fit the interpretation
except i can't remember what it's like to escape from this
this moving from things
lessons we were never taught
includes staying
nobody stays anymore
so we are never really sure what to do when someone
looks like they are making a home beside us
she told me she loved me today
in letters written upside down
while i was reading an article about porn
she tapped my foot beneath the table to draw my attention
from the train wreck of an existence before my moving eyes
she hummed some child's sonnet while she sat and waited
the juxtaposition couldn't have been any more disturbing
i smiled when i read the words
and wrote "i know"
upside down and crooked
i didn't repeat it back
and she sunk a little lower in her plastic chair
seems sorta silly that i would have withheld those words
given the loss i am facing now with suddenly losing an uncle
but i don't want to give her any sort of false hope about our future
i'm still figuring that one out
i remember the time when i couldn't wait to let those syllables roll off my tongue.
perhaps i'm the one most practiced at not staying
anyone could tell that we were destined to be more then the confines of girlfriends
we are family
and sometimes that is more
and less..
whichever way this rolls out
i am reminded that people leave all the time
sometimes suddenly
and sometimes so slowly that you mistake their movement as coming towards you instead of moving away
these are the lessons i am noticing
i have not mastered them in the least
yet i try
and i gargle these sorts of things day in and day out in the back of my throat
i practice taking notice
and getting out of my head enough to see them clearly
i am learning to decipher what to swallow and what to spit out
today i swallowed and my stomach rumbled in appreciation..
this is one of the pleasures of life that i found while awake..
