Friday, The Seventeenth
Signed, Sealed and Delivered.
Friday, the seventeenth, at the seventeenth hour…
I stand across the street and watch as you walk further away from me, your body the only thing I see in the boisterous crowd that threatens to burst my eardrums and shatter my focus. I watch you go without saying goodbye for the first ever time. We never walked away from each other without saying our goodbyes. What happened to us? What happened to you? What happened to me?
Friday, the seventeenth, at the seventeenth hour…
I hold your hand for the last time you would allow me and bid myself not to cry at the loss of your warmth. I steel myself as the words fall from your mouth, pretending they didn’t hurt the way you were not hoping for them to hurt. Faking the smile I hope you think and believe is real. Pretending you didn’t just shatter my world with words we promised never to say to each other.
Friday, the seventeenth, at the seventeenth hour…
I become a poet once again and write to you with my tears. I dip my quill in the crashing waves of the salty lakes that cascade along the banks of the flesh you once bestowed with your love, kisses, affection and your delicate body. I hold a flame to the perfumed love notes you always left in my breast pocket and watch them mould to the ashes of the burnt logs in our shared fireplace, the smell on your hoodies being replaced by the scent of detergent and the petrol they are doused in, the pillow on your side colder than it has ever been.
Friday, the seventeenth, the seventeenth minute of the seventeenth hour…
I watch your body go up in flames, you finally becoming one with the flames and the earth as you had always wished. The one favour you asked for on the day you asked me to let go of your hands. And like a phoenix, I hope you might rise from the ashes again.
To love, hold, and have me again.
Signed:
A🖤💜