STAGE TWO

How could you leave me like this?

No fucking note,

not even a forwarding address,

no warning,

no reason,

no torment exposed under the footlights.

I woke up,

and you were gone,

leaving behind a trail of dreams

that I collect like seashells

that always stay in the exile of pails,

my heart as thrashed as all the tender things

that sooner or later become extinct,

leaving me in this empty lot of

miss

and 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,

my goddamn lust,

and stuffed it in your bag

as you made good your escape.

You fucking coward.

You child.

You infant.

You nothing.

But I am nothing

without you.And now

breath becomes a melee,

pain—a stampede of darkness

that announces its intent

at every twist and turn.

And here I am,

in the shadow house of who I am now,

where echoes do not come with Duolingo,

greying,

withering

like the death rattle of courage,

with fewer minutes,

longer hours,

sunlight barely detected

in Stage Two on the Kübler-Ross hit parade,

where all I want to do is love you

and despise you

and spend my days

praying at the altar of you.

I thought you were me

and would stay forever,

but you do not think like me.

You are not, after all,

human.

You are my youth:

my soulmate,

playmate,

lover

and confidant,

my threadbare guarantee of immortality.

So I will wait

and watch from my window

like the queen of Ithaca,

believing that you still love me 

and one day

you will return