And This Is What Happens

My nightmare realized. Appeared to me
in a cozy kitchen stuffed with Christians, gummy bears, rainbows, sunshine and sugar. A joy I used to feel.
Warmth and love and laughter, not mine anymore.
But there you were. Saw me. Held me
as if time, school, jobs and
distant countries hadn’t left us dissevered.

Damn you for being so beautiful.
Damn you for owning the first pair of eyes I could look into
and for making me stare into them again
tonight. Like I hadn’t crossed paths with death to get here.
Hadn’t heard my voice bellowing into the
hollows that life is far from fair and ever will be.
As though I was still her, still that same person.

How many things were wrong with me?
Could you make a list?
Perhaps a nonsensical notion at best,
seeing as we’re still adding to that list.
Will be adding for years to come.
You don’t know how many times a day I say fuck or
that my favorite thought when I’m unhappy is of lying down in traffic.

In this kitchen, glowy light and pattering pans, surrounded by fall and happy hearts, I know.
We weren’t anything and never will be.
Nevertheless, you were once what I wanted.
And now instead of want
I feel space. You, expanding outward and
me, lessening.