restless, i wander around in confined spaces. i light candles. i try to pray a rosary but i can't focus. i play solitaire. i eat fruit and read white oleander. i sit staring at nothing. how could i begin to unfold what i'd like to say to you, if there were no repercussions, if i was allowed the same wide berth of excuse, of emotion, of anger that i've given you. i've shoved it down for so many months, creased the lines of outrage and swallowed it down, released it into my pores, taken it out on myself in the form of a tight chest and cramped shoulders, a constant ache and colds that won't heal. if you asked me now to let it all out, i'd just stare at you blankly: what do you mean? everything is fine, i'd say, my eyes glazed, head cocked, smile plastered across the mask you forced me to build.

in my dreams i find you

huddled in corners, dirt smeared

tears stained on your face

i hold your head in my hands and

you tell me about the places you’re

trying to convince yourself not

to go back to

i pull you up and carry

you home, tuck you into

bed, feed you, stroke

your face

in my dreams i can save

you. in my dreams, even

this is

fixable.

she                                                                                                                                                                                                                       plummets.

is miserable the right word for what i've been all these months? maybe not. there have been times when i laughed, and smiled, and sighed contentedly. did those things seem like shadows of what they could be? yes. maybe that's the word, shadowed. since you left everything has seemed so much less than what it could be. so when things are good, what does it matter? you're still not here. you will be, but the moment has already passed. i can't replicate it later. i can choose to be content, i can even choose to be happy, but i can't choose to dispel the thought that my whole world is only half as good as it could be if you were here right now.

it feels a lot like getting stood up

she starts to get ready. she puts on a black bra that opens in the front. a black lacy thong. a shirt that snaps. she giggles at herself practicing sexy poses in the mirror, she likes the way the snaps send a vibration like a taut rubber band through her fingers when she clasps them shut. she is wondering what jeans she'll wear when she gets an email. it's been a horrible day, he won't be around. she crumples to the floor and admonishes herself for being upset over something so stupid. she puts on a different shirt. throws on some jeans, no longer caring what she looks like. she can't seem to stop crying. it's just one more thing to add to all the other things that make the hole in her chest keep on gaping. she cries every day when they are talking and he says he has to go, because when they are talking is the only time she knows for sure that he is safe, and because every time he says goodbye it's like he's leaving her again. it's that, and the dream she had last night in which he didn't want her anymore, and it's the fact that she feels stupid for being excited about anything, and for thinking she may just be kind of sexy for a minute. it's that she feels like if she could just see him for five minutes, just remember what his hands feel like on her skin, she wouldn't feel so empty. it's that he is sad and tired of being mistreated by the people who are supposed to be on his side and just wants to come home to her and there's nothing she can do about it. it's that there's no one to be angry at for all of this, and when resentment sometimes creeps up in the back of her throat at him, she cries even harder and begs god for forgiveness. it's that she never tells anyone any of this, and this secret pain somehow makes her feel stronger. and as she cries, making no mention of her drowning, she tries to comfort him and once again pretends that everything is fine.