when I am done. She will show up
to your first date with a dustpan
and broom, ready to pick up all the pieces
I left you in. She will hear my name so often
it will begin to dig holes in her. That
is where doubt will grow. She will look
at your neck, your thin hips, your mouth,
wondering at the way I touched you.
She will make you all the promises I did
and some I never could. She will hear only
the terrible stories. How I drank. How I lied.
She will wonder (as I have) how someone
as wonderful as you could love a monster
like the woman who came before her. Still,
she will compete with my ghost.
She will understand why you do not look
in the back of closets. Why you are afraid
of what’s under the bed. She will know
every corner of you is haunted
by me."
“Time was passing like a hand waving from a train I wanted to be on. I hope you never have to think about anything as much as I think about you.”—
Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (via feellng)
i knew i wasn’t gonna find you so i gave up the dream
and even though once, i thought i finally came close, i didn’t let the dream come back.
you were best forgotten and anyway,
i needed more room for the possible.
i tried to laugh often and fill up the space around me so i wouldn’t notice what wasn’t there
(any room you’re not in is empty as far as i’m concerned)
but
after a dream dies, there’s also the burial (and the haunting) and
so a part of me was still waiting.
i could feel it trying to bring me back to the impossibility of you
but i couldn’t let that happen.
and i promise not that long ago
your arrival was a truth i believed in
but every room i walked into was empty and
you took your time and the shadows in my heart got bigger and bigger
and then eventually they were all that was left.
if i’m honest
a part of me still hoped that maybe i was wrong and you were out there after all
and maybe you were writing about the shadows, too
but i inherited the homesick hearts of three generations of women
who waited for something that almost belonged to them but never did
and i couldn’t hold on to that.
if i’ve failed you i’m sorry,
but if i’m right about this you’re already on your way home to
someone else.
so i’m saying this here,
now,
so that i can let go.
I forgive you for not knowing the way to me.
I forgive every map that led you to a room i’d never walk into.
I forgive you for every arrival
somewhere else.
