Spiteful

I drove searching for the slither of memory. Where the pot holes in the road remind me of you. The speed bumps, the house we claimed our own. The road I drove down everyday sounds different. And when I drive past certain places I feel a magnetic pole directing me—my heart’s compass—and it wonders why I keep going past my normal destination. Parts of me forget the reality—parts of me refuse to believe it—my lips are tinted red and chapped from trying to taste the essence you left behind.

I search through windows, at faces, at cars rushing by. I’m searching for another glimpse of you. I’m tempted to buy the scent you always wore—but I should know better. And yet I search for you in the sandwiches people buy, in the roar of a car’s engine, in the groves of the sand where you paced over. I look for you in the words I see, and the pillows you squeezed. I look for your finger prints on the things you touched. I dig in my past searching for your smile and for the countless ways you said I love you. For all the surprised hugs and taps, hands grasps and places we thought we’d see.

I look for you in the twists of grass blades, the wave of water, the frosted cloud in a sunset. I look for you in the folds of vanilla ice cream and the textured of a young man’s shaved face. I look at a couple and blur them into looking like us—but I look away with a ridged spin—why do I fool myself.

I want to believe that this feeling deep within me is true. It seems to think you’ll find your way back to me—that we’ll find our way back to each other. Part of me wants to rip it where it rests and smear it on the asphalt outside your house. So that when you pull out your drive way it’s you who feels burned and not me.

I feel so sick—how can I think such things. How can I be so spiteful. How can you be talking to that girl. How does she see you now that you’re without me. How do you feel.

When will I stop feeling.


October 11, 2009