Thursday, February 13, 2020

Old Lovers

You are the first to die, the only one so far (if someone else left without telling me, it wasn’t before you, the first, the first everything), and now you are gone seven years already, and when I learned—just before—that you were dying (actively dying, a matter of hours, days), I kept a secret vigil, sending you thoughts, wishing you had replied that last time I wrote, wishing we could have been some sort of friends, hoping for someone to let you know that I knew, hoping on your death bed you would just know that I knew, and then, when out for an oh-so-festive Chinese New Year dinner with the usual suspects, welcoming the Year of the Snake, my phone vibrated with the inevitable text and I silently slinked to the restroom to cry, but it was a bad restroom for crying (no lock on the door, a single stall across from a public sink, almost certain interruption), so instead I shed my skin, slithered to the mirror, and studied my new self’s sheen—altered, because you are the first to die.

5 comments:

  1. Shivers. This poem (you sneaky one, sliding one in and pretending it is just prose!)...don't let it go just yet. Circle back around. There's so much here.

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  2. oh oh oh. How dare you be intimidated by anyone else's writing--you can knock the socks off your readers with these one-sentence prose poems. I bow, barefoot, before the undisputed master of this literary form.

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  3. Oh oh my. Please keep this up.

    The details in the moment when you learn that your life will never be the same in a way that no one else will know.

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  4. I read this a few days ago and had no words for a comment. I am not sure I do now. I think I remember you mentioning this when it happened, but of course I didn't know the relationship. But I agree with the rest of our friends, this is so beautiful.

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  5. I'm sorry I'm so late. You got me all weepy. It is, as Kim said, a poem, and a beautiful, heart-breaking one at that. Perfect use of the one-sentence post. I bow once again to the master. And send hugs.

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