Author: Elizabeth Maynard

These years
have you come to yourself
more stranger or friend?
In your becoming 
are you more compassion
or cruelty?
Can you sit and listen
to yourself at last?

I don't want to do this
without you anymore
What other choice
presents itself
but to pack again
in boxes and bags
sleep without you
in new rooms
new countries

I take myself apart again
piece follows piece
I no longer resemble
anyone I ever knew
I can be exchanged 
for any of these here
too soon to tell
who I may be next

Here we are
each pretending to write
read, labor at some task
in the midst of a busy shop
I remember how close I sat
in the library
hoping for the pause
in your studies
the possibility of flirtation
making myself a nuisance
If we were there again
I would sit at an appealing distance
so you could want me
set out to find me

And now more lost
There can be no reason
sound or sane
for this tragedy
nor our cowardice
to prevent it

I wouldn't recognize you
if we passed on the street
You are more literal 
than I remember
move and think slowly
We both ache in ways
unimaginable at fifteen
Now it is bones and sinew
then it was the longing
of children for
every forbidden thing

I once lived in that house
slept in that bed
rested my head there
where your shoulder reaches
from that deep voice
to the warm expanse of your chest
I knew myself
a little while, uncertain
afraid of what lay ahead
would be what I left behind
You tucked my head
under your chin
hummed softly until
I lost even your name

As a girl I could not hold
a sky so wide
the wings of the city
too frail for those fears
Memory turns
this heart at last wide open
now longs for these spaces
and the sky blue
beyond any of those days

When I settled, I suffered

Days lose their hours
one like the other
I have paced out the steps
length and width
radius and circumference
Seeing your face
on the small screen
I lose myself
transgress, confess
I miss you
want immediately to draw it back
Here, immobilized
I have gone too far