A star-studded calendar and meeting the sun every day at seven cannot curve the blow
Of the fact that we are learning the unspoken of moving apart.
I miss you.
And there’s a special terror in seeing the distance in a one-room apartment
Like glimpsing the reality of a foreign moon riding our known gravity,
Filled with the dust neither one of us has the courage to step on.
There’s a special sadness in the lack of ceremony,
The removal of a great fire and drum thump,
War paint, and perhaps a blood sacrifice to explain the pain of ending.
We won’t, most likely, even shape the word good-bye
But let it come in slowly,
Finding space in the ellipses, the parentheses,
The end of the sentence where no speech can fit it, just the suggestion
Left dangling like the forgotten tumor,
And there’s a special knowledge in that feeling,
Like the instinct in the base of my skull,
The animal premonition none of my cultured reasoning can silence
That tells me I may heal and, worse, forget.
Just as you will heal, and worse, forget.
I’m sorry I cannot stop it.

And I know I triggered it
Because sometimes too much happiness sounds like a death rattle to me,
And I invite sadness back in again out of the fear of
My will open like a switchblade, and potential a humming box beside her,
Maybe filled with the violin of the gods or a hornets’ nest instead.
I find myself rapping my ribs and
Slamming the wooden frame underneath to see if I can shake out the door demons with the sawdust,
Running nightingale notes through my throat to see if something sings back louder,
And tracing the waltz steps of old scars to see if my fingers can still make a red dance out of them.

While you rearrange the word tried into tired and step back over the line you crossed years ago
Silently,
And with good grace,
Love,
And a torch to ward me off even as I burn down the other side.   

I know you’re scared
With muscles trembling and shoulders rubbed raw as Atlas’s from holding this together,
I know you’re scared  
With the new silence coming in.
I know I’m scared
But we will, most likely,
Not even shape the word good-bye,
But let it come in slowly.
We will, most likely, heal and forget,
Heal and forget.