one that i want

I’m listening to the last song we shared – the last song you waltzed within me to – for the first time since. & you are no longer the one I want. But I’m still trying to refill my bones from when you sucked out the marrow. The truth is that I get stuck between the two exits regularly, as if each is a portal to admitting I didn’t get what I wanted. A portal to admitting I have actually failed. An admission that I am as hollow as the bones you cleaned. I get caught between the two exits, the one you took & the one I pushed you through. I find myself staying up too late, wondering what I was supposed to learn, the way my papa taught me to. I stay up too late reconfiguring your touch & always missing the mark. I miss the space you held on the right side of the bed & the way you doodled distractions on the subway for me when my monsters were winning. I don’t miss the minimization or the games. I miss the video games in your living room & your roommates & being a part of something bigger. Now I’m afraid I’m too salty for the cake batter & too sweet for the stew. There’s an unrisen pile of bread dough somewhere I could belong to, but hopping from bakery to bakery is growing old & there are so many songs I’ve wanted to stack up in your lap & so many jokes I’ve wanted to whisper in your ear & I’m sorry I can’t give them to you. & I’m sorry no one ever wants to give them to me, except the tone deaf & the humorless. Sometimes I convince myself that I could have shrunk enough for you to carry me. Other times I know it was merely a practice in wumbology, fruitless. You are no longer the one that I want because I am too fearful to desire anymore. I’m afraid I will be too much & not enough again. I’m afraid I’ll switch out the magnifier in the kaleidoscope with a concave lens. I’m afraid I’ll lose my magic when under the microscope again. I don’t know how to retain or if I even should. But I know, I know you are not the one that I want. Because you never cared about the sudden onset of rain or about concavity or about your breath on my neck. Only cared about my perfume, my satins, my silks; about espresso & tip toes & fusilli. About key & pitch & rhythm & tempo. But I’m so off key & I’m so out of time & the volume is always too loud. I can’t move in subtlety like you, I’ve tried. For you. & for me. & for the rest. I can’t tip toe like you, I’ve tried. The bone contusion won’t allow it. I am not ballet flats. I am combat boots, & you are jazz shoes. I can’t stop harping on you, on the past. I wanted so badly for you to be my future. Why do I keep giving you my present? I’m so angry at myself for renting out my moments to you again & again & again. I never learn, I never let go. I never learned to let go. I carry you in my pores, so deeply, that even when I crack my mind open & let it bleed out, it chooses to bleed for you. I don’t want to carry you this way. I don’t want to hold you in my cheeks, in my tastebuds this way. I want to breathe a breath that hasn’t been soaked in your saliva. Loving you was elevator shafts. I’m sorry, I didn’t think that’s what I wanted to say. I thought I wanted to say it was Sunday mornings & elephant chants, because it was. But by the end: cavernous, catacombs, echoes. I still hold you in my cells & I scrub at my skin praying to erase. No, not erase, cleanse. You are no longer the one that I want.