someone asked me how you move on. do they know i still dream about you. waited to see if you’d say anything on my birthday, was kind of hoping for an opening. my mother says you sound different when you talk about her. i hold you like a coal on the back of my tongue.
how do we move on? i take pictures of flowers, of ferns, of things i think you would like. i brush my teeth and braid my hair and sing badly and nothing echoes good inside of me. i write poems about birds and burns and bleach and they all reek with the absence of you because not-writing about you is still writing about you. in my favorite daydream i come home to you and just kiss you and hold a candle to the dry tinder and propane, call conflict seeing sparks.
how do we move on? i guess. like this. i eat too many watermelon sourpatch candies because they’re my favorite. it makes my tongue bleed. i can’t taste anything for hours afterwards. i keep chewing long past the hurting. this is how next time i don’t say yes. this is how i light you out of me like a sunburn. this is how i chase out all this sharp white want. i say - okay. just this once. and then we need to walk away.
okay just this once. okay just this once. okay. just today. and then we move on.
