In the continual flux of this seasonal rut
there are certain callbacks
some might call them drawbacks
of being in your eyes’ limelight.
Perhaps one day soon
ignoring your casual remembrance
will become more than a failed reflex.
And karma will stop sifting
through my memory’s index.
But for now,
my nerves enter a state of regretful nostalgia
whenever I don’t hear your voice
in a teasing scold
as I watch a pot that won’t boil
or whenever I stand at a coffee counter
and feel like I’m forgetting something
as I order for one
or whenever I sit alone
in a church pew or a cineplex
and I turn to the ghost of you
for a kleenex.
It’s such a waste,
all this space you acquire.
What am I supposed to do
with the knowledge that you
like your eggs over easy
and your soda in a styrofoam cup,
your coffee hot and your jeans old and worn.
Or the recollection of your uneven smile
or your allergy to latex
or the fact that your nephew’s favorite toy
is his plastic T-rex.
It frightens me,
this power you display over me
from afar. Do you even think of me?
Sometimes I picture you laughing
in a way you never did,
transforming you into a warlock,
casting over me an obsessive hex,
making me want to hire a medium
to help decipher
your heart’s perplexing codex.
I don’t know how to smile
in a way you didn’t make your own.
I don’t know where to look
in my own home.
There’s no corner you never were.
You ruined my favorite song
because I was fool enough
to make it about you.
Is that some kind of subtle flex?
That my mind proved so successful to annex?
Does it give you a God complex?
That it all comes back to you,
my ex.
