For someone I probably still love

 

I was telling someone the other day 

something that I really just don’t want to tell myself

which is that it’s so important to acknowledge 

what drew you to a certain relationship in the first place. 

Of course some of it is inevitably the fault of 

your father, your mother, siblings, your first love, a babysitter, 

and that can be a lifetime of work, but

there had to be some good takeaways too no?

Like, I guess I’ll make this about me 

since it’s my poem and my chronology to play with,

but because of Her I ride a bike everywhere

up and down Seattle hills

blood pumping, thighs gripping against the pedals

laughing to myself as my lungs fill with phlegm 

and the rain kisses my face.

 I saw her today and immediately we were making jokes about the city, 

turning it on like we probably would regardless of knowing each other, 

and maybe that’s a funny thing to discuss with myself,

this shared compulsion to work like a switch

though perhaps not with her, hell no, I analyzed too much in that relationship, 

we even joked about that today, remember? 

Her new girlfriend is a therapist, what a laugh! 

And I really did laugh, I still am.

She said she was too shy to reach out but she had been thinking of me

I wanted to ask her everything but as I later share,

I’m experimenting with my porousness.

perhaps my openness is for no one really, 

at least not for who is seeping in.

She was so good about my pronouns, 

introducing me to her parents inflexibly.

It meant a lot to me at the time, 

every instance she said them a feeling

I hadn’t felt in ages rushed through me

that of being a kid at Disneyland 

on a summer night with my family

 and finding the line to the log ride

was only twenty five minutes.

I insisted they didn’t matter that much to me, just as I do now

because for as long as I can remember, it always felt like a joke 

to be called what I was called.

 And, fortunately, most people had a sense of humor

with this bit that was me.

Why should I care to be seen, I said

I don’t want to be someone’s pat on the back, I said

But it just is what it is, she said, it’s the least anyone can do 

If you feel a certain way about yourself, why insist it can’t be spoken?

My rigor mortis, my defensive chest beating 

She took it upon herself to call me as I felt.

Every time I boil eggs

I take them off the burner and let them sit 

for twelve minutes, and I have cheap snacks for the week. 

She had a surefire way to boil eggs, and thought I should be looped in. 

There’s something here about sustenance and time

Taking something off the burner.

Remembering the good things, remembering them as little ripples in time

that opened up other worlds, however small, however limited, but opened nevertheless.

There’s something here about the thread of our existence.

Tracing it, finding a pattern, knitting it, a variation on a theme 

that you can’t yet undo. 

a 206 number texts me a smiley face, professes happiness 

and I remember that I deleted her number but I know it anyway.