I fell out of love with you on a Friday morning

I’m here by the stream
that runs cold
over the old
crock jar where
you keep your heart,
our manuscript
on my lap.

After three seasons of
on again off again
I wanted to smell
the clean air where
you told me

this feels like love

one more time.

I fell out of love with you
on a Friday morning
after the roses went missing.

You’d taken me to your
old apartment when we
first got together,
gave me a key.
We locked it and
moved in to a new place
where we could laugh and love,
start over.

Out of sight.

And when you went
missing in spirit
I used the key.

Saw your ass pumping
with my roses on her bedside

I leaf through our manuscript
the old oak against my back
as the water keeps
your heart
cool

I just wanted to smell the clean air
and remember

When you wrote the poem
about the purring ginger cat
and your grief when you
had to bury it because some
asshole hit it.

And I held you through the
night, looked at pictures
with you when your dog
had his last day as your
best friend

How many ‘go you’
moments did we share…
Goals and saves and concerts
and diets and
that driving lesson that
made your asshole
pucker

But made you proud.
God it made you proud

I wanted to smell the clean air
because I can’t smell
the salt line on your back
from where you sweated
so hard you had to buy a new shirt
and I wanted to climb in the shirt

because sweat makes me feral.

And I want to look at the
jar because
those
‘what I’m up to now’
moments in the
middle of the day
are gone.
Fuck I loved
knowing you
thought about me
enough to share
your work.

I was always
enamored by your
ability to create.

So I breathe
clean air and remember

when we talked about you being
a stunt dick
instead of what
was bothering me

and when I told you,
about his death
you held me
so fucking gently
I couldn’t smell
their perfume

You even told me
about your new life,
in your way,
with some maudlin shit I
thought was low self image
And me,
as in love
as a woman ever was
wanted nothing but
to see your good,
to lift you up
make you feel better

So I comforted you.
When you wrote poems
about fucking
other
women
and gave them to me.

I let each poem
from our manuscript,
each memory
hundreds of pages,
thousands of moments
leave my hand and
float away.

The tree at my back
feels like your arms
for a moment

and for the first time
there’s no temptation
to relax into
my besties arms,
to tell a dad joke to my sexy,
to be weird and taboo
with my lover

I fell out of love with you
last Friday morning,
and there’s
no yearning to strain to hear you
call me
gorgeous,
one more time.

Just the sound
of the stream
where you keep your
heart in an old
crock jar

so I leave.

I leave.