when i remember you

by

Not on rainy afternoons, or birthdays, or when I see elderly men and women on empty streets, 
the setting sun kissing the ash in their hair—we both know that we are above these weary cliches, 
and anyway if we were truly a cliche then we should have had a happy ending, which we didn't, 
or else our story, messy and glorious and maddening, would still be unraveling, which it isn't.

Not when I'm busy, certainly, not when there are clients and contracts and grocery lists and
pushes and pulls and balancing acts and tales to spin, spin, spin, and long days that are webs 
of hours and encounters; there isn't always time to miss you. I'm sorry. Not when I can spend 
time with myself, radiant, light, or with people who make me feel like myself. Not when I am 
at my happiest or saddest—you have taught me to keep a safe distance from emotional extremes, 
and even now I only want to be strong and sturdy in your eyes. I've only ever wanted to be good.

This, though: when it is quiet and I can hear my healing and hurt, or in that last minute before 
I drift off to sleep, rest welcome. When there is peace, and there is the night, and nothing else.