You turned around quickly, professionally
And
Stabbed me with your silent laughter
And
As you walked away, you said, None Of Your Business
And
Oh-so-casually ground my murmur into graveyard dust
And
You carefully, calmly, cruelly, closed yourself off
And
Rattled my eardrums with the inevitable tick-tock of a swinging door
And
You didn’t know, but I could feel you roll your eyes through the wall
And
Shrug off the fragments you’d collected on your jacket
When you tore up my question.
The rest was dirty windows, shuddering tires, jostling strangers, rhythmic tapping
Crop circle text, invisible strings, chokeholds and staredowns and blood vessels
Refusing the alcohol, faking the cigarettes, refilling the water
Kicking the brick wall over and over and over, brass section blaring in my ears and screaming WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY FOR YOURSELF until the pain ran up my legs to the scrape on my knee, a dull ache from a tumble on freshly mown grass—
What’s the point, says the tightness in my chest?
Trust pouring out of me like sand from an hourglass, what’s one more stain?
I wonder if you truly heard me, understood me, after you’d given up?
Were you able to translate all those profoundly long pauses?
(I was holding back the urge to scream into the receiver)
Just know that I’m languishing in the machine you built
And I’d rather you aired me out, folded me up
Next to your T-shirts, and your jeans, and your blue scarf, and your shrunken socks
Instead of leaving me spinning
With the rest of the loose change.