Arsenic of SIlence Poured By You-Not-Me

I buried you. With my hands, I wrote to you, snowflakes against a windowpane. Me: ineffectual. You? Cold, sheltered inside. With my mouth, I told my story, again and again and again, until it became just that: a story. It wasn’t something that happened to me. It wasn’t MY story. It was a story. With my voice, I screamed; I screamed until there was no sound left for you. There will be no more screaming for you, because of you. I’m saving what’s left. In my head, it was my fault for misinterpreting the situation. In reality, it was your fault for not caring about the situation. Or hating that you cared, for caring but not wanting to care.



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I killed you. By forgetting long walks in a park in the dark. By trying not to see your eyes in the eyes of more that came. By not letting the loneliness that we shared (share?) break through my façade. By not letting them see that, at least, in my eyes. By not hearing those silences, by not hearing your heartbeat through your thin shirt on a boat moored in a pond that was nowhere. A pond that wasn’t a lake, a boat that wasn’t a vessel, a light-blue button-down shirt that was armor and a heart that it shielded. But I heard it.

I heard it beating when we rolled down a hill (that flattened), when we sat in an amphitheatre (that wasn’t), when we sat in a boat (that couldn’t) and when we sat in a gazebo that was…everything that meant nothing, and you pulled me to you. I wish that you had used your hands to pull me, your arms, your anything physical that I could blame, that I could revile, that I could shy away from in park-post-mortem. But you didn’t. You let this moth flit to you, with her eyes wide, her lips parted (Dior Berry Foolish Cherry No. 24), hopes a-wondering if this, this was what it meant to wait, and not speak, and know and want, and have it happen. No. And what pulled her? It? Knowing that you had me entranced, fascinated by this moving, musical, magical man, alone in his indifference and deep difference, you told me that I wanted you, that if I were closer: maybe! maybe I could hear your heart beating. But what you didn’t know, my darling, was that I heard it from far away too.

I murdered you. With the arsenic of your silence, I infused the connection, the bond that had no need for words. With the knife of your betrayal, I severed the understanding that we had that there was magic, that we were surrounded in every aspect of our beings by something better, nobler, braver than us.

Do you know what the paradox is? The knocks against the inside of the coffin indicate that it is I who am to blame for killing you, thinking that I can let you out. Writing to me was banging on your coffin of guilt that you wanted out of. You forgot about the mausoleum of memories of us that I was trapped in for so long.

But I did hardly any of that. You killed us first. You are only dead to me in our world that we built by seeing dependence and feigning independence, by knowing love and then forfeiting friendship. You let yourself be alive, in your own fashion of being alive, to everyone else. So then, I didn’t kill you. You killed us first, and I? I was reborn because:

I buried you.

For SAM

This is dedicated for you,
who are in love,
who have been in love,
who - I hope - will always be in love.

Thank you for bringing back romance,
and roses, candles, songs,
balloons, pianos, and gifts,
and would-you-marry-me down on your knees,
into our lives.

maybe you thought we thought you were naive,
and as a matter of fact,
I think sometimes we did,
but don't let it discourage you from falling,
falling all the way through.

because maybe,
we were just missing our younger hearts,
maybe we were just missing the carefree feeling of taking chances,
maybe we were just missing the memory of being swept off our feet,
and washed away by waves of exultation and romanticism.

This is dedicated for you,
a good friend,
who filled our nights with wondrous tales,
of love fulfilled,
over late night lattes,
or beer,
or wine,
or the occasional straight vodka and leftovers.

I remember that night you were saying,
that you let your wild side roam free as your imagination followed the tracks of our adventures.

but you know what,
I think our imagination runs free with yours,
as you are living our painfully romantic sides,
that we have been painstakingly trying to curb,
in exchange for pragmatism,
and logic.

Thank you, SAM,
and I am wishing you a pleasant journey.

Ann Arbor, 01.21.2009