this scar has healed
somewhat
i don't see your face in every object anymore
but sometimes i still need
i still need
i need to pick up your baseball cap
sniff the essence of your soft hair
the suffocating scent of your various colognes
drown myself in my last remnant of you
drown myself in the memories of your voice and smell
drown myself in my own self-pity:
the usual blah-humbug
i quiver as i write this
unsure
if the cause of my body's vibrations is the cold dawn air on my skin
or the return of deliberately buried emotions
yeah, i quiver
somewhat
knowing that you knew how i loved you
knowing you knew you were the only one who could take my power
remembering the way you forcefully grabbed my hand
savagely pressed my palm against your cloth-covered erection
and i
i, half-heartedly resisting
as if your supposedly heterosexual flesh would burn
i remember it all
somewhat
i hate forgetting
even if it's the only way i can stop thinking of you
even then
i hate forgetting
what the hell went wrong?
tell me, damnit
you should know, mr. "hetero"
you're the one who's supposed to avoid other guys
you weren't supposed to shove my face toward your crotch
(goddess, every time i see my black tapestry with the bright fishes
i can only remember your strapping body stretched out on it)
even if you knew i loved you
even if you knew i wanted you
you knew it wasn't reciprocal
you knew it wasn't
you knew
how ironic that you did this to me the Wednesday morning of April 8
cause i keep forgetting and misremembering
thinking that it happened the Wednesday before:
April Fool's Day
compared to you i'm completely innocent in this
somewhat
so i had ulterior motives in giving you a massage
what were yours?
what were your reasons for breaking me?
why did you use and shock my mind and heart into total paralysis?
why did you kill me?
you say you're sorry, but you sure don't act it
as if you only said it to shut me up
you dared to act like nothing happened
you dared to show that to you, it was nothing
you dared tell me you were tired of hearing me upset over this
you dared tell me i should shut up just because others had it worse than me
as if that made my problems with you less legitimate
and when i asked you not to talk to me so i could have time to recover from you
you dared to cut me off so quickly and so effortlessly
you dared to treat me with less courtesy than you give total strangers
you dared to call me a liar when i exposed your dishonesty and inconsideration
you dared to tell me that i, I was at fault
that I was a bad person
that I hurt YOU
that i hurt you when i was the one crying my eyes out for three days nearly non-stop
so why the hell do i still love you?
love is only blind in an intentionally selective sense
i look at your baseball cap and realize something important:
our hair is identical
somewhat
at first glance our hair is black
but when separated into individual strands of protein
such as the three i find stuck in the weave of your cap
i realize that yours is really a dark brown
strange, your hair is softer than mine;
when it comes to our hearts it's the other way around
one final sniff
it floods back too fast sometimes
your overdose of cologne
your disturbing raise of one eyebrow as you pumped
the warm bread smell of your sexy back and buoyant butt
the reverberations of your voice penetrating through your chest
vibrating the soft fabric of my bed
vibrating that damn black tapestry and my body next to yours
embracing you from behind as i held your flesh in a hesitant hand
tasting burning salt when you angrily released into my mouth
trying not to caress you since you didn't want my touch after you came
holding back tears as you kissed me the morning after and walked out of my life
three minutes after i awoke
damn you to hell
this scar has healed
somewhat
but sometimes i still need
i still need you
i still need
somewhat
this scar i sometimes need
to suffocate in your burning salt baseball cap humbug
it helps
somewhat
(for Anthony)