If you sleep in a bra,
you'll have strange dreams.
If you love someone on the
other side of the world,
they'll like it better there;
they'll like it much better if you
stay put.
You're not allowed to interfere
with the life they're building,
the friends, homes, jobs, regular waitresses
that they've come to know.
If I go to the
other side of the earth,
he'll love me right when
I get off the plane,
and he'll love me
right where I am,
sleeping on the couch that smells like vomit.
He'll take me to his
second-favorite restaurant—
cause the first favorite is just too
precious, that diner is just his.
But I’ll say nothing
and we’ll have an ok visit.
And then he'll love me the most
walking the terminal to my
plane on home.
These people who move away,
they want no part of you.
Only, they don't say so.
They just avoid a second invite,
avoid a reciprocal visit.
They start calling the new city
"home."
And he'll come back to town
to visit his mom,
an old friend from school,
a newborn newphew,
But he won't call me.
And I will know, the moment
I hear he was in town and left with no word,
that he heard me:
on the couch in his insufferable little apartment,
whispering his name into the balled-up flannel sheets
clenched in my free fist
(we made love on those soft sheets once).
I know he heard me
making love to myself in his absence.
I know he heard me
crying as I came.
He never wanted me
in the first place,
let alone the new place.
And then I find myself alone
during a cold snap,
halfway around the world,
falling asleep after another session,
my clothes half-off,
snuggling up to the pile of pillows
next to me,
telling the pile,
"I love you."
And falling asleep
still wearing my bra
and having strange dreams
of the one I loved
on the other side of the world.