A Token from My Journeys

Catching up with my ex-husband over coffee today,

I found myself staring into the distance behind him,

inspecting a stray coffee ground swirling in my mug,

and counting the sugar packets on the table.

I realized, if I didn’t look directly at him, he wasn’t real.

If I don’t search for his eyes, or gaze too long in his direction,

he remains peripheral; a dream that softens with each passing hour.

Somehow, someway, I’ve lessened the past with him,

that which once stood monumental before me,

Left me in awe of its greatness

—Its devastating beauty.

And from it, I’ve created a snow globe trinket

of a magical world; an upturned life that snows

down gently in the blurring edges of my past.

This blurring isn’t something new,

I’m not great at remembering faces.

I don’t know how others saw him.

I don’t remember what he looked like walking

away, because that only happened once.

But the smell of his neck where I rested my face

at night, the feel of his hand on my chest,

the curl of his eyelash against my cheek when

we would kiss, the texture of his perfectly trimmed

moustache against my lips

—these I have hours, and hours, and hours.

My body keeps these muscle memories, so that

when I come home and don’t walk into his welcoming

hug, I am left with a craving that hollows me out.

The only thing to fill that space is to look

in the mirror and say to myself:

              I love you… I love you… I love you.