Where she goes when she’s not there

He hovered above me with the mess of sheets separating us,

His arms almost cradling my head.

Periodically picking up a piece of hair between his fingers from where it fanned out across his bed

In doing so my eyes would flutter and I’d resist the urge to close them while the ocean in my chest crashed against my rib cage.

I was holding my breath 

Like the lack of wind would settle the storm brewing beneath

I could feel his weight against me

My chest ached and my breath stuttered with the effort of holding it inside as every other piece of me evacuated the shore 

He asked me, “can you breathe?”

I nodded and I could feel his weight shift as he held back more

His eyes searched my face 

And I thought of you in that motel room 

The way you hovered above me so hesitantly 

And how one hand cupped my face firmly while the edge of your thumb softly rubbed against my wet eyelashes

The other stroked my hair, pushing it away from my face while I became undone 

Both times I struggled to swallow back the mess of seaweed and sand and beach chairs and all the rest of the things we leave behind 

The briny taste of it all burned my throat 

And he smiled at me in a way that signaled sirens 

“You aren’t talking but you wear your heart on your sleeve.”

And so I think of the boy who kissed my shoulder while driving the curved lines of the canyon 

Who said “let me kiss you wear it hurts”

The way I folded into him that night 

I showed him how I pinned my paper heart to my sleeve

He unfolded and refolded, creating new lines with each crease.

Like old letters I have hidden in my closet

Talking about the ocean and moon

Him and I are on a walk and he points to the moon

While I look for constellations 

I resist the urge to tell him about the moon and tides and the way she pulled him to her but he ran back to the shore

 

It makes me think of perhaps the way he loved her, the girl that accidentally stranded him on an island unto himself 

A place that sometimes felt so hard to reach 

He’s saying my name

And I can feel his voice gently pulling me to the surface 

Ash

Ash

Ash 

He says 

His shoulder is inches from my lips so I reach up to kiss it

And I think of the way I kissed your shoulders all those nights when you turned away from me

Last night he asked “do you want space?”

Reminding me that I said I often folded only into myself at night 

The word space felt like an old ache 

An old memory of you 

This morning, I woke to him kissing my shoulder and the tangle of our limbs.

Like we could fold into one another.

And I wonder if I’m just a summary of all the old aches the men I’ve loved left behind

If each part of me has been carefully cut from the different versions of the girl he loved

And as he hovers above me I wonder if he sees the wreckage of the storm

Or a collage of all that’s broken together