The Falling Out

“What is hardest to accept about the passage of time is that the people who once mattered the most to us are wrapped up in parentheses.”

John Ivring

Learned to accept loss by losing,
lost nouns by way of verbs.
Forgot the sounds that tongues in mouths
made, hidden up against my cheek.
Avoiding the clicks of words that
would lead to let down.
Forgot about the monuments –
the movement that signaled the
monumental loss. Four months
is a long time to not be in love.
Took four months for me to decide
when to give it up.
Four months of crying was all
it would take for you to decide
that you were still in love.
You are not allowed to just choose,
you can’t fall out of love,
expect love to still be there
when you pick yourself back up.
(It has been longer now –
and now all I can remember
of you is those four months
wrapped up and pushed aside.)
The inevitable end that happens
between ultimatums.
Couldn’t expect you to make up
your mind, couldn’t expect me
to change mine.