How Could You Leave Me Like This?

How could you leave me like this?
No note,
not even a forwarding address,
no warning,
no reason,
no anguish
played before the footlights.

I woke up,
and you were gone,
leaving behind a diaspora of dreams—
seashells stranded in pails—
leaving me to yearn
for the bakery of you:
the scent,
the floury sweetness,
the taste that I thought
was renewable
as the seasons
or subscriptions.

You stole my lust,
stuffed it in your bag
and made good your escape.

I thought you were me
and would stay forever.

But you do not think like me.

You are, after all,
not human.

You are my youth:

my threadbare guarantee of immortality.

So I will wait
weave my shroud
like the queen of Ithaca,
and unravel it at night,
believing
you still love me
and one day
you will return.