I Left You Too

The first time,
I left you in a temple
In between incense sticks
I tucked you into a monks pocket
Hoping he would take your name to god
So he could reach down and
Teach me to forget it

I left you on my bathroom floor
A pile of hair you touched
Gathering by my feet, a mountain
Of yours no longer
I left you in the box in my mothers closet
Like a dog licking its wounds
I couldn’t leave it alone
So I left you in the ashes of that box
I left you on every walk I took
Running through last conversations
Arguments I was never brave enough to start
I left you in letters, in songs, in poems
On roadsides and highways
I left you on couches, in bedrooms
Left you in her mouth
Left you in his

I left you by the bar we never visited
The you I never knew
Conceptual lover of what ifs and somedays
Mourning a stranger on the curb
I left you between singed wicks
The white dress promised future
Burned in the bottom of a glass dish
Underneath twine ashes
I left you in the bar glass, the bathroom stall
I left you in minor chords
I left you in gas stations, shared roads
Concert halls, open fields
And a hundred other places

The last time I left you
It was in the middle of the ocean
Once you were more pebble than boulder
The amniotic waves
Took the rest of you with the tide
I didn’t notice when you fell from my hands
There was no funeral
No aria
No angels
Just a rolling horizon

-D.V