Missive

Because this was the poem I wanted to write for so long:
of things that made me believe

in walking in the rain with an umbrella
and being wounded when I least expected to, at the same time

delivering just the right amount of aching. This is what’s kept me
like this for so long, always caught up

with memories of you smiling, you
beside me: the inescapable inability

to understand everything that has gone between us. The inability to grasp
the truth: how you never really said “no” all those moments I felt lost

in your silence – waiting for a reason. Always
waiting and staying still, fetal

and curled up in bed, each facing
the other way. Is this what it means to feel

the weight of something far too late? Is this estrangement
the only thing we dared share with each other?

What do we call this? What name
do we give this failure to believe in our happiness?

Neither of us were wrong to have felt frightened
by this kind of wanting.