Tarnished Star

Sometimes when I stare at the empty, I realize the emptiness is you.                                                
I imagine you at desolate bars on Thursday nights, staring into the                                                
bottom of the glass, reflecting on everything you have consumed.                                                
You used to swallow fire to impress me. You would raise your glass to me,                                                
drinking down fire and liquor. It scared me to death. There is no fire                                                
in your drink now. I think you have extinguished the memory.                                                
                                               
Today I put in your old mix tape, waiting for you to speak through                                                
the solemn bars. Seeking to feel whole…notes of longing and regret.                                                
The star is tarnished now. The one you gave me on our first Christmas                                                
together. I keep it on the nightstand buried beneath the rest of golden bands                                            
and pearl strands from other men before and after you. That star was hollow--                                        
a wasteful wish desperately crashing to earth. It once was shiny when it was new.                                        
But it did not withstand the test of time.                                                
                                               
I have buried other things in the underbelly of the night. The promise                                            
ring from my first love. It never lost its shine, though he came many years                                      
before you. I was seventeen, he was twenty-two. We fell too hard, too fast.                              
He flew home with the Canadian geese.                                    
I like to contemplate the meaning of that first ring:
the crown for loyalty, hands for friendship, and heart for love.                                                
Then after him came the gemstone cross
from the love I met while travelling the world.                                                                                  
He was Hungarian like me. I loved him well enough.                            
I wear his cross sometimes, to protect me from the empty.                                                
                                               
After then came you.                      
For all the failed wishes, you had a reason for every one.                  
You blamed your childhood—your divorced parents, your rough neighborhood,                
your previous girlfriends, your drug-addicted brother, your Bible-thumping sisters,              
your incarcerated father. You blamed your fellow Marines for your alcoholism.                                            
               
You blamed me every time I had to wipe the vomit                
off your face, and for saying "I love you."                                      
You blamed me for being too good.                    
Often I blamed myself.                                         
                                               
And after you came another with a jeweled butterfly and promise ring.                              
You and I laughed at his claim of of the ring as a "synthetic diamond." It was a simulated                              
diamond worth fifty bucks. He was too stupid to realize the difference.                                                
It was cheap lie—worse than tarnished stars.                            
He was Greek like you, and with the same temper        
except you hid yours better.                            
You stuck around awhile after I left him.                                                
                                               
I think you thought the star might rise again.                                                
                                               
Remember when you said you saw us getting married someday?                                                
                                               
Yet you never once said you loved me.                                      
                               
You refused to give me any sort of ring—                                  
claiming it could be "misconstrued."                                                
At least you didn’t add another broken promise ring to my collection.                                                
                                                    
The fact is you were ashamed. You wouldn't bring me home                                  
to your family because I was Catholic                                  
and because I was (how did you put it?)                                                
“chunky?”                                    
                                 
I see all these hidden treasures, but hesitate to touch them. I feel touching    
them will bring back something I left behind. But out of all my keepsakes, forgotten                                                
love letters, and poetry, you, the man I knew the longest, gave me nothing
but a simple star and a horseshoe necklace for our anniversary of two years.                             
You said it would be bring me luck. (Would it ever bring me luck?)
But that star is the one thing I can’t bear    
to look at. I keep it out of sight in the dark, beneath                                                
the shiny broken promises of other men at other times.                                                
                                               
There is an irony to all of this:                                                
when I met the man I would one day marry,    
that is when you told me you loved me.