In Another Universe, You Left Gently

Shaking, I hold the phone
Your voice comes through the other end but it falls on ears too caught up in static to focus
The sky is falling again and here I sit
Stupid for being hopeful
Watching you take a sledge hammer to my childhood fantasies
Only a witness as you rip the young girl out of your rib cage

After turning into a stranger I bought a bottle of Absolut
I called my mom from my balcony and told her “I think this is the last time I’ll ever cry”
She said there were better things to die for but I couldn’t think of one
Too paralyzed with endless emptiness, I could only stare off the edge until the sun rose

In the aftermath, I held the broken body of my inner child and told her stories of possibility
Wrapped her in daydreams and illusions
Shielded from reality with whispers of “what if”
As if hope wasn’t a silent killer

Two years later and I still dream that you
in that moment
had left gently

That you held my heart carefully in your hands and opened your fist
Let me find my wings and with steady beats learn to fly again
You would tell me with a sugar tongue
How wonderful it was to have known you, how glad I am to have loved you
We part ways, separate but not desperate to be so

My doppelgänger of delusion never felt the space you left behind
She didn’t walk with your shadow in her steps but instead faced the sun
Screamed at the open sky and felt the drum thrashing in her chest
Reveled in that moment with reckless abandon
Freedom, a welcome taste on her tongue

Years later, we would reminisce over coffee
And we’re laughing
My god, we’re laughing
And my eyes look the same as yours

- D.V