Grief Written

 Your laugh crackled on the end of the phone  I could hear water in the speakers and the water in the tub wrapped around my legs as I pulled them up to my chest  “I think about you more than once a day,” you said. I paused,  because really you didn’t say those things much.  Several I miss you’s were smoothed over and when I recited a grocery list of all the things I liked about you, you gave me a sticky note. A defensive laugh slipped out of me when I told you -  “Well, of course I think about you more than once but I’m trying not to freak you out.” My affection for you was always slipping between my fingers. Tumbling out of faucets and over the edge of bathtubs, as I tried to mop up the water quickly. I can hear the water dripping even after the pipes have rusted shut, It’s as loud as your absence.

 I think I read somewhere that patterns repeat themselves in the world, that there’s a limited amount  The textbook had a picture of a seashell  and I can’t remember if it was a math book Or perhaps a science book Maybe it was a sequence and not a pattern  And perhaps it doesn’t matter at all Because here I am again, alone in my bed Writing poetry While the sequence repeats  Just with a different boy  Before long I’ll turn the light off And think of all the ways I could disprove this theory  How I could unravel the pattern Rip the dejavu from the seams  And forget to listen for the sound of a knock at the door That never comes  And maybe just fall asleep

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