Your apparition,
like a ten-year reunion
(or was it an anniversary?).
A leap
like the 29th of February.
It was a rarity.
But was it also a charity?
Your absence of clarity
was presently clear.
It was too green
for me to even
contemplate a tear.
Was I a bore
when you wanted
to explore?
Did you refuse
to pursue
because you wanted to
peruse?
Didn't want to spoil your muse,
so you left me unused?
With 'Not so sure I do.
But what say you?'
When I surely do,
but you
would rather
bid me
adieu.
Haunted by the metronome
of
Did you
or
didn't you?
I asked the cards for a clue
instead of asking you.
Juvenile
and jejune
to confess
I wanted to be stained
by you,
with bruises signed
by you,
mark of the beast tattooed
of you,
muscle memory rehearsed
of you,
my heart cursed
by you
so no one after
could
compare
to you.
You've got me speaking like a Christian.
I would have bowed in pews. I would have consecrated us two.
I learned many languages
but I wanted to learn you.
I traveled dimensions,
but I wanted to traverse you.
I can't toss you
behind my shoulder
like the strands of my hair.
I can't pretend it was green
when a fruiting body was there.
Prophecies
and inklings,
yet
it’s all in
my mind?
I was
red and ripe
but you
were colorblind.
Buried in the brown
before ever seeing the light.
I put you on the calendar before
sending an invite,
to unveil the veiled decade,
one
article
of
clothing
at a time.
May it all rest in peace:
the life we departed.
The potentials aborted
before even started.
The reality
where you choose me
and not lose me.
Where you'd get me,
and not let me
walk away.
Was it even a departure
when you never invited
me to stay?
Miscarried.
All the potentials. All the serenades. All the kisses in between massages.
Where you'd step out of your shields and masks
and defensive camouflages.
Where you'd keep going forward without your doubts,
and only pull back
when pulling out.
You banned the books
I would have signed
with love notes on the page.
Adoring me only in the hostage
of this cage,
when there were
green lights,
highways,
stairwells
to the next
stage.
So was it all the fault of my age?
Did I repulse you
like sage;
purifying your soul
at the expense
of a foul
wage?
Are you outraged
by your own abortion?
It was you who favored it;
I just seconded the motion.
There's nothing left to mourn
because
'Nothing was even born.'
Oh, enough
with the scorn,
when you repeatedly
began it
then unexpectedly
adjourned.
Delivering smoke signals
then mixed signals;
a bluff
is all you dealt.
I'm abused
by the
withheld.
The withdrawals.
The repelled.
Did he
or
didn’t he?
I never could tell.
Expel me
from wearing white;
I stain everything I step into.
'I meant to.'
'I intended to.'
But never
ever
did you.
Superstitions
and
intuitions.
Were all of
my wishes
premonitions?
I had my predictions,
I felt my convictions,
all of which
annihilated
under your
jurisdiction.
When I prophesied
with visions
the alchemy of
one
decision.
But you chose
partiality
over
direct,
keen
precision.
Retracted,
redacted,
but watch,
this’ll all be
reenacted.
But what was the point of it—
the glances,
the chances,
annually
anointed?
My questions
spit
and land
on a
dense wall
of Velcro.
You’ve become
a third party,
anonymity,
holding truth
as if it were
escrowed.
Show me you
and I’ll show you
me.
I know I didn’t earn
your intimacy,
but did I really deserve
a proxy?
You just
held
open
the door
for me,
as if uttering
under your breath,
finally.
How strange
that the longer I know you,
the more a stranger
you become
to me.
When others gave effort
so effortlessly.
Hiding flowers inside their sleeves
to surprise me.
But they were warm as lips,
and wilted.
In refusing their love,
I've lived life guilted.
Fully addicted
to the desire you'd inflicted:
when I looked away
then caught your head,
tilted.
I forced you,
but the one who was raped
was me.
What I seek
is seeking me,
but only as a
reverie.
I'm still a baby
tied to the umbilical cord.
My mind stores you
like a garage filled with hoards.
I can’t starve
what's insatiable.
I've died many deaths,
but with this
I'm incapable.
The past reappears like
a pair of
old shoes.
Torn,
warm,
from the habit of being worn.
Your goodbye,
a no reply,
leaving the air
forlorn,
for even cold water,
when familiar,
becomes
lukewarm.
You’ve got me running
on speeding treadmills;
escaping you
on ground
that’s stubbornly
still.
Burn you,
bleach you,
anything to
kill
the unrequited thrill,
the drag of ‘until,’
and the lag
of
waiting
and waving
for the
delayed bill.
Still,
how magical it was to wonder
and never discover.
To flirt with the melancholy
of being your lost lover.
Immortalizing our eggs
before ever becoming a mother.
But no longer did I want the
masturbation of secrets
when there was a whole hard world
to uncover.
Yet would our early erasure
be yet
another?
Like an erratum of regret
you slate
for the next day?
Would you push me away
like
an airport delay
or a perpetual
foreplay?
Shopping me like an aisle,
abandoning your cart.
Postponing our start.
'What's up with this desk that's keeping us apart?'
When you know damn well it was
the bruises
around your heart.
Covered in casts.
Reciting your doubts
like spells cast.
Beating with mantras
of
'nothing lasts'
and
'not so fast.'
Then, when?
Would we forever be a
draft?
Clinging tightly to your past,
you let your future pass.
Snoozing it for years
as if the other woman
were your
fears.
In fighting for nothing,
in mastering the discreet,
you’ve become a walking
defeat,
en route to your island
to contemplate and retreat,
while I’ve become cake batter
as the oven preheats,
relying on toothpicks
to announce my
readiness
to eat.
Never the full meal,
but a lick
of a
cheap,
sinful
treat.
I asked
then embodied
the form of receipt,
when the dialogue
of prayer
is a
two-way street.
You buried the truth,
but the floor had a heartbeat.
So I took the task
of drilling through
the concrete.
© Stephanie Khio 2024